Saturday, March 20th, 1982

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

March 20, 1982

ALCHEMY; BODHICITTA

TOPIC: Alchemy

SUBJECT: Bodhicitta

SUBSUBJECTS: Dragon, Intellect, Astrology, Jung, Light of Nature, Mercurius, Image of God, Photisms, Mentalism, Plotinus, Nature

CONTENTS:

Quote from John N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation, and the One; Plotinus has only one world; world of true being is right here

Ideas in man, world, God; there is a knowledge which exists in the chart but our insensitivity and lack of discrimination prevents us from understanding it

Reading summary of previous class (March 13, 1982)

Quote from Durand, "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture"

Plurality of temperaments explained through astrology; more nuanced than reduction to single temperament

Astrological language as figurative and deific; operating with emblems of things, not mere words; one of the advantages of magical consciousness over conceptual

Question about how the World-Soul becomes conscious through participating entities

Buddhism approaches problem of Dragon as first real encounter on the Quest

Quote from Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening, on biotic force/Dragon

Dragon as not-I; has to be overcome or made into ally

All planets have life belt surrounding; medieval man did not feel alienated from the world; individual chart participates in Earth chart; relevance for understanding alchemical practices

Two streams: memory in body and soul dealing with bodily tendencies; conflict between these as stage for the Quest

Intellectual development potentially serving the Dragon; contemporary alienation as possibly Dragon's influence; philosophical understanding as primary protection

Transition to bodhicitta and image of God; question whether these are the same thing; reading quotations from Aion on image of God

Reading from Bulwer-Lytton, A Strange Story

Three lights within human beings: 1) pale red (animal life, Sun); 2) azure (intellectual being, Moon); 3) silvery spark (unaltered presence, Mercury); identified as Nous atom or bodhicitta

Reading from Beatrice Lane Suzuki, "Bodhicitta"

Bodhicitta as star within that may be experienced in meditation; appears first as if outside oneself, then recognized as within; connection to experience of revulsion toward ego

Reading from Jung, "On the Nature of the Psyche," on lumen naturae (natural light) and scintillae (sparks); natural light not in animals but in us

Scintillae as photisms (sparks of light) seen during meditation; as natural light that illuminates our mind

Mentalism: whole world (zodiac, planetary spheres, elements) is projected from within bodhicitta; Intelligible World as within you a literal statement

PB: others will come after me and give out all the details; details of mentalism have not been worked out

Reading of Jung quote about Mercurius as two-faced god; psychopomp or diabolical seducer depending on response

Nature placed between cosmic soul (Sun in Aquarius) and twelfth house levels; bodhicitta released by cosmic soul illuminates Nature

Light of Nature, image of God, Mercurius, bodhicitta as interchangeable terms

Discussion of how Mercurius can be both light of Nature and diabolical seducer

Question about whether Nature is distinct from light of soul (bodhicitta)

Extended discussion about what type of consciousness Nature possesses; Nature's knowing below sensation and imagination; bodhicitta distinguished by presence of gnostic faculties

Discussion of animals' instinctual knowledge as possible example of Nature's knowing

Nature as Dragon; operates with dream consciousness

Discussion of Plotinus's statement (III.8.4) that Nature "broods, inactive"; comparison to semi-wakeful state or artist's reverie

Salk's dream experience identifying with polio germ; alchemists immersed themselves in Nature's non-human mode of being/knowing

Question about whether Dragon and Nature are the same; Nature spread over all the planetary spheres

Nature as self-subsistent principle dependent on soul, not a projection from soul

BOOKS / ARTICLES READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• John N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation, and the One: A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus

• Gilbert Durand, "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture" in Spring 1976: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought, James Hillman (Ed.)

• Rudolf Bernoulli, "Spiritual Development as Reflected in Alchemy and Related Disciplines" in Spiritual Disciplines (Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, 4)

• A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme

• T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Vol. 1, Parts 1 and III

• A.P. Sinnett, The Occult World

• Julius Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening

• C.G. Jung, CW 9, Part II, Aion

• Edward Bulwer-Lytton, A Strange Story

• Paul Brunton, Asiatic Notebooks, unpublished

• Beatrice Lane Suzuki, "Bodhicitta," in Buddhism in England, Volumes 13-14

• C.G. Jung, CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche

• Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks

• C.G. Jung, CW 13, Alchemical Studies

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: I.1.7, III.8.4, IV.4.13

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].]

PAPER read in this transcript:

• 3/13/82 Partial Transcript (Scan File 1982 0313-10R17.PDF), originally typed by CdA. This is really a summary of the class and references the Durand article, the Bernoulli paper, and A.J. Penny's book.

NOTES:

• We have a partial transcript for this class with no AD edits, Scan File 1982 0320-08R17.PDF, originally typed by CdA.

• This is the Saturday AM class.

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2021. In 2025, IT alters Subsubjects, completes TOC, expands Plotinus quotes section, adds new notes within transcript, updates audio file markers to match new REP audio. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.

AUDIO FILES: 1982 0320a, 1982 0320b. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: In 2024, REP Studio cuts dead air from file b.]

1982 03/20 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Alchemy; Bodhicitta

[Audio File 1982 0320a Begins]

[background student talking, shuffling about; AD begins to speak at 0:00:30.6]

AD: We'll start now. Is there any announcements? Any announcements, Severin? (laughter)

S: Does he still want to--

S: Was that a threat?

S: Last chance Severin. (laughter)

AS: He's stupid enough to show up in the morning he deserves it. (AS laughs a bit, bit of laughter)

S (faint): Just in case.

AD: We're changing meditation to 4 o'clock to accommodate, you know, traveling. So, those of you who want to meditate we're going to do it at 4, probably go on till 5, 5:15. I think today's the equinox.

S (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): Go ahead.

AD: Alright then, we'll start. (Alright./Well--) I wanted to sharply focus your mind on this one point that we'll hammer away at over and over again in our understanding of Plotinus. And that was something which I think the ancients evidently understood very well and took for granted. Which shows, you know, to what extent they had penetrated the deeps of philosophy. I'm quoting from Deck so that I-- I want you to see it's not only my opinion but I think a few others who penetrated into the Platonists who come to the same conclusion.

LR: Guess what Tony? (laughter)

AD: That's my shadow. (laughter)

AS: You don't feel well.

AD: We'll listen [S simultaneously: Ok.] to this quotation Linda.

LR: Thank you.

AD: From Deck. (bit of laughter) Page 111.

[Transcriber note: I am using Nature, Contemplation, and the One: A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus by John N. Deck, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.]

John N. Deck [Nature, Contemplation, and the One, "Conclusion," p. 111, AD reading]: "As we have seen, Plotinus has only one world. That world, its being, its entity, consists in the true beings, which are identical with the Nous, the veritable Knower. Only the Knower, of course, can know the world as it truly is. This means, if we may employ the spatial metaphor, that Plotinus' world of true being [AD emphasizes rest of this sentence and the next sentence] is right here. It is not a heaven of ideas. Taken in this way, the world is not caused by the Nous, except insofar as, within the Nous, [intellect is sometimes said to cause the intelligibles]. It is the Nous.

"The world of true being has an imitation: the world which presents itself to sense and opinion. The imitation is not unreal, but is decisively less real than the true being. The only being in the imitation is true being and only to the extent that it is there. But more properly, the imitation [AD emphasizes rest of this phrase] is in the true being; the world of true being contains its own imitation. The imitation is produced by the true being in a way similar to that in which an image in a mirror is produced by the thing reflected. Therefore the Nous could be called the formal cause of the being in the imitation--if there were any being in the imitation--and the efficient cause of the imitation as an imitation."

AD: If you have that passage, read it over for yourself.

LR/S(?) (faint): What page is it-- what page is it?

S (faint): 111.

S: Yeah.

[short pause]

AD: But that was what we had spoken about in some ways yesterday. [Note: See WG Class 1982 0319a.] And we said that when you look at a chart, when you try to understand the world in which you live, that the Ideas of the Nous are in, the way the alchemists put it, in man, in the world, in God. In our case God would be referred all the way up to the Nous. So that the possibility that there is a knowledge that exists and which is available to us in the chart is again reinforced by many of these quotations. It's our insentis-- insensitivity and our lack of discrimination which probably prevents us from understanding it. At any rate, last week we-- we covered quite a bit of ground and a lot of the implications probably escaped us. So, if-- with your permission I'd like to read a summary of last week. Whoever has the strength.

S (very faint): Uh-hm. (laughter, student words)

AS: Ok. You want to read it all but--

S (very faint): That'd be nice.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: Yeah. If you see something you want to leave out--

AS: No, I thought it was-- (some laughter) No actually I thought it was pretty good.

AD: It's a summary, it's a good summary.

AS: The references for this were the Spring Magazine article, 1976, of Gilbert Durand, "The Image of Man in Western Occult Tradition". [Note: Gilbert Durand, "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture" in Spring 1976: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought, James Hillman (Ed.)] And papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Volume 4. [Note: Rudolf Bernoulli, "Spiritual Development as Reflected in Alchemy and Related Disciplines" in Spiritual Disciplines (Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, 4).] And Studies in Jacob Böhme by Penny. [Note: A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme.]

[Transcriber note: The following is a reading of the 3/13/82 partial transcript, Scan File 1982 0313-10R17.PDF, which is really a summary of the class. Partial transcript originally typed by CdA.]

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 1-2, AS reading]: "As a necessary background for alchemy, we will contrast the image of man in the twentieth century with that of the fifteenth century medieval man. We have spoken about the displacement of Avicenna's notion of the Active Intellect -- a universal intellect which presided over all men -- by Averroes' notion of the individual intellect, which was then furthered by Aquinas. They [AS reads: These latter] insisted upon the individuation of that intellect, and this was the beginning of encapsulating the ego and separating it from the cosmos. Medieval man was being forced to individuate. This was the starting point of the split in philosophical thought that we see up to the present day -- the"official" academic philosophy versus that which might be exemplified by Eastern thought, tantric practices, and alchemy.

"In the history of philosophy there is an increasing corporealization of the individual soul, bringing about greater and greater involvement in matter. Traditional [Note:"Magical" handwritten above "Traditional" in parentheses in partial transcript.] man felt an openness, a rapport with the cosmos. He didn't hold himself responsible for the operation of cosmic tattvas, whereas the modern man, cut off from this relationship, feels [AS reads: does feel] himself to be responsible. This is what the ego wants so as to conceive of itself as godly, and the result is it is becoming devilish. The Western man says: "I think, therefore I am." The traditional unalienated man doesn't separate his "I" from the world in which he lives. In the Hermetic formula -- the world, man, and God -- is [AS reads: are] a unity. But in the classical orthodox philosophies, [AS: Western.] the "I" and the world are sundered. Where we would see a paradox or [a] contradiction between multiplicity and unity, they would not. They experienced the [AS reads: this] unity which underlies man, world, and God, [AS adds: and] which in our terminology would be the Cosmic Soul. The Magnum Opus, the Great Work of the alchemists was to bring about the conjunction of the individual soul with this unity, the Unus Mundus."

[short pause]

AS: Ok. And there was some quotes from the Spring article, where he-- he made several of these distinctions clear. He went through several points in which the traditional teaching dis-- is in opposition to the modern academic point of view. [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has here (See Spring pp. 83-89).] Ok, then--

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 2-3, AS reading]: "There are within us a pull of many tendencies, a variety of centers that are operative and which you experience as the plurality of your being. You don't experience the transcendental apperceptive unity of the"I". If you project everything out of the "I" and everything of worth is out in the world, this "I" becomes an empty form of cognition. Otherwise, you would realize the "I" as a plurality also.

"In deep meditation you can get a view of many animals raging within you. [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has"p. 90" in the left margin of this sentence, referring to p. 90 of Spring article.]

"The unity of the astral body is the receptacle where all these impulses take place. You experience the variety of [these]"signatures" in that one astral body. If it was not a unity, you would be absolutely fragmented. If it did not remain self-identical with itself, it could not provide the multiplicity of experience. This unity is a felt, lived unity. It is not conceptual.

"He [AS reads: In the article, the author here] is trying to reinstate the [AS reads: a] magical view of the world. We have for the last thousand years been developing the intellect [AS reads: intellectual]. [AS: It's another way of viewing this duality.] This has its value -- the logical syntax of language and conceptual development, but it doesn't necessarily preclude the other, but [AS reads: however] Western man is always in a schizoid state of separation of [AS reads: between] these two [AS adds: the logical and the magical]. [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has"p. 92" in the left margin of this paragraph, referring to p. 92 of Spring article.]

"Among the ancients, cause was something substantial [AS adds: for example] in the sense of a lived situation or some actual thing causing some other thing. As we progress in the history of philosophy toward modern times, causality loses that substantiality [and] becomes more and more conceptual, until you reach the point, as in Hume, where he says that one cannot explain the causality of one billiard ball hitting another. He abstracted the concept [AS adds: of]"billiard ball' from the actual billiard ball, and then has difficulty understanding how one concept could move another concept. So there is a progressive dematerialization of causality until modern physics, where it has become incomprehensible. We have lost contact with the actual substantiality that is [AS reads: of] causality.

[Note: AS omits the following two sentences from the 3/13/82 partial: "The causality that takes place on the gross level was descriptive; the causality that took place from the subtle to the gross was actual. But the subtle that they speak about is a materiality…"]

"The physicist is coming to the conclusion that ultimately what he is manipulating is symbols. As with the Analytical Positivists, who say this word has to refer to this sensible object -- all this is taking place on the subtle level. He is [AS reads: He's] manipulating symbols and thinks he is doing something with reality. The totality of all their meanings are in the subtle, but they insist that they're materialistically orientated and [that] they are dealing only with the sensible world.

"I [AS reads: We] don't want to build a dichotomy between the development in the intellect, and the magical consciousness. Our view will require both, the conceptual intellect and the magical, in the sense that the imagination is magical. This is at a much lower level [AS reads: This at a much lower level is] the"combination of the sharpest subtlest thinking and the thought-free state…""

[short pause]

AD: "This will lead to…"

AS: Yeah. "This will lead to a combination of the--" This-- this dichotomy at this level, at the surface level of the conceptual intellect and the magical--

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 3, AS reading]: "…[AS adds: will lead] at a much lower level to the"combination of the sharpest subtlest thinking and also the thought-free state…""

FW: Avery?

S: Yeah.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah.

FW: Could-- could you just repeat that idea, [TS, faint: Yeah.] maybe a couple of sentences back?

S (simultaneously): (Yeah/Sure).

AS: Yeah.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 3, AS reading]: "I [AS reads: We] don't want to build a dichotomy between the development in the intellect, and the magical consciousness."

AS: The point was not to say that one was better than the-- well, better or whatever, that both are necessary.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 3, AS reading]: "Our view will require both [AS adds: of these], the conceptual intellect and the magical…"

AS: Ok?

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 3, AS reading]: "This is at a much lower level [AS adds: though than what it ultimately might lead to, which is] the"combination of the sharpest subtlest thinking and the thought-free state…""

[short pause]

AS: Ok? The next point. In the article he goes through several-- several of these points on which these two views disagree and he-- you know-- we just mentioned a few of them. For example here the magical and the intellectual, the one world view versus the split off of the ego. [student assents, faint] And here's another one, the question of space, time, and causality, another point of disagreement. Well, he already mentioned causality. And this is another point of disagreement.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 3-4, AS reading]: "It isn't a question that you situate life within a space, but that space is lived or it isn't space. This is the only space that they speak about. We can speak of a space absolutely devoid of all qualities [and] we can build in that space a church or a factory, [it] doesn't matter to us. [AS adds: But] To a medieval magical consciousness, that couldn't be; there are certain localities permeated with certain qualities and those which are not. This is what [AS emphasizes following word] they mean by space. There isn't a homogeneity of qualities in space, but pockets of quality in different areas. This naturally follows from what we speak of as the retention by the world of everything that [AS adds: has] lived on its surface. This is [AS reads: This retention is in what we call] the common sensorium, that [AS reads: the] atmospheric belt surrounding the world, where the retention of experiences are those qualitatively felt spaces. [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has"p. 94" in the left margin of this paragraph, referring to p. 94 of Spring article.]

"Jung says similarly that the moment you are [AS reads: you're born] you participate in the quality of the energy of that moment, which [AS reads: and this] is the signature of the universe imprinted on you, and therefore is the correspondence between you and the universe."

[short pause]

AS: Then here's this quote.

[Transcriber note: The following quote is found on page 311 of "Spiritual Development as Reflected in Alchemy and Related Disciplines" by Rudolf Bernoulli in Spiritual Disciplines (Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, 4). Please see the 3/13/82 verbatim transcript for a more complete quote.]

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 4, AS reading]: ""The most important conception of all, one which I regard as the very beginning and foundation of alchemy, is the idea of correspondences. … Now what in reality is the striking of the [AS reads: a] match? Is it only the light [AS adds: which is seen], [only] the smell, [only] the scratching [AS adds: you hear], or [only] the heat [AS adds: that you feel]? We cannot separate these things. The striking of the match is precisely the manifestation of an event in different sensory fields. The conception of a primal event manifested in many different fields is one of the fundamental ideas of alchemy, an idea without which there could be no alchemy. But the idea goes much further than our example [AS adds: of the match], although our example illustrates an essential point: there is no way of proving that a given acoustical impression must correspond to a given optical impression. These are things that cannot be treated logically. And no more are the great correspondences asserted by alchemy accessible to logical analysis. We cannot for example prove the basic correspondence [AS adds: of] world = man = God, which signifies that one fundamental fact is manifested in these three forms.""

AS: End of quote.

S (very faint): Ok.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 4, AS reading]: "The following is a quote which refers [AS reads: in reference] to what we have called the dragon…"

AS: And what we previous referred to here as the retention of experiences in these qualitatively felt spaces.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 4-5, AS reading]: "…on p. 162 of Studies in Böhme [AS reads: in Studies in Böhme, p. 162]:""Every sun has a solar spirit." [AS: S-o-l-a-r.] . . . "Every planetary orb of the terrestrial sort [AS adds: is] a terrestrial spirit. The spirit of every orb is diffused into, and lives throughout, its mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, and [AS adds: it] is an immortal entity, a living, indivisible, and instinctively conscious existence, but is without [AS adds: a] human personality, and so abstractly conscious of pleasure or pain, but without power to determine its own sensations.""" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part I, Vol. 1, pp. 100, 101]

AS: End of quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 5, AS reading]: "There is a kind of life which surrounds the Earth and permeates everything on the Earth; this life in itself is an indivisible, eternal creature."It lives in every one of its kingdoms." [AS adds: Perhaps] We should reverse it and say [AS adds: that] our life seems to be a participation in its life. So [AS adds: we] think of this atmosphere surrounding the Earth as what is referred to here as the [AS reads: a] World-Soul. (Each and every planet also has its own terrestrial soul.)"

AS: And the quote goes on.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 5, AS reading]: """Insphered in every solar, aromal, or terrestrial planetary world, is an appropriate World-Soul, living in the life of all its distinct creations, [and] permeating alike its atmospheres, its waters, [its] material crust, and [its] electro-igneous centre. These World-Souls comprise the first family of God, and their number is [as] that of the stars." . . . "They are absorptive organs for the Divine Spirit; and pervading each its own world, and living in all its parts, they distribute throughout matter the Divine vitality." . . . "I was given to understand that the World-Soul of one planet had become inverted from light to darkness, in consequence of the abandonment of [AS reads: in consequence abandoned] its race to moral evil; [AS adds: and] that the external body of that [AS reads: this] orb had long since been dissipated; but [that] the psychical form of the planet still adhered together, [and] was the abyss spoken of in ancient days." . . . "The lost Spirits from that orb were the first tempters and deceivers of our own human race." . . . "The World-Soul of our orb is exceedingly afflicted and suffers in all the inversions of Divine order upon [AS reads: that are on] our globe.""" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part I, Vol. 1, pp. 100, 101]

AS: That's the end of quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 5, AS reading]: "These creatures or [these] various kingdoms are the organs by which it distributes vitality and assimilates it back. This [AS: The] soul of the Earth lives in and through all those [AS reads: these] creatures and [AS adds: it] becomes conscious of the sensation of pleasure and pain through those creatures.

"The source of [the] affliction [AS adds: to it] is [AS adds: of course] the human race. Because of [the] lack of moral and ethical behavior on our part, the psychical atmosphere of the Earth is gradually being turned into an opaque darkness. This is obvious for anyone acquainted with the history of the last fifty years. [AS reads: And this is obvious if you're acquainted with history.] So…"

S (simultaneously): Wait a minute, what?

AS: If you're acquainted with history of the Earth for the last fifty years or more.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 5-6, AS reading]: "So think of the World-Soul assimilating the life [AS adds: that's] lived by the race on the planet -- what it gets back are these proclivities or tendencies and it thus in turn gets colored by them. And it often responds in kind. The common example is [AS reads: For example in Atlantis] the moral degradation of the Atlanteans [which] ultimately brought a response on the part of the World-Soul [AS: ok] which destroyed them by natural cataclysms [AS reads: which destroyed it]."

AS: Um--

S (very faint): Uh-hm. Let's see.

AS: So-- And she has this quote--

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 6, AS reading]: """The World-Souls of the universe exist in pairs, male and female. They maintain a vast impersonal consciousness throughout the electrical natural spheres of the orbs to which they [respectively] pertain. The World-Soul of our [AS adds: own] orb is feminine [and] its masculine counterpart is [that of the planet] Mars, [through which it is supported in its fearful struggles at the present time]."" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part III, Vol. 1, Ch. 2, par. 98]

"Mars was regarded as the progenitor of all the animals, and also brings about the mutation or separation of forms through reason principles [(cuts them off)]."

AS: (The) quote-- I have a quote.

S (faint): Ok.

AS (faint): Good, do you have the book?

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 6, AS reading]: """The nature and [the] direction of the affinities of the World-Souls determine, to a large extent, the industrial and social harmonies of the human races. The grouping [AS reads: groupings] of the planets, in psychical relations growing out of these affinities, determines the genesis of ideas in individuals." . . . "When the World-Soul is [deranged or] disturbed the disturbance and disadjustment of [AS reads: to] human society is inevitable, as it is through the World-Soul of each orb that the Divine harmonies are distributed."" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part I, Vol. 1, pp. 102, 103]

"""The associations of the World-Soul determine the typal varieties of [AS adds: the] animals and new races and varieties of races will appear among us as the [AS reads: a] result of the disenthralment of our own World-Soul from the slavery of the [AS reads: of various] hells.""" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 105]

AS: And this (is) a quote, so it goes on.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 6, AS reading]: ""I wish to draw special attention to this saying about the magnetization of the World-Soul, because I think it points to a hitherto unworked vein of knowledge. The every-day marvels of magnetism, animal magnetism as it is called, will give us, I believe, something of a key to the [AS reads: a] mystery of evil. To all who think, I conclude it is a mystery; most of all, one would suppose, to people who regard the idea of a spiritual tempter as an outworn superstition. But if there is no powerful adversary behind the scenes, urging, prompting, and alluring to evil practices, how are we to explain conduct which opposes every instinct of self-interest? If human weakness accounts for much crime, it leaves much more that is laborious and self-restraining unaccounted for: [the] delusions of vain women, [of] world-worshipping men, have more the effect of cruel bondage than of self-indulgence. [Now] if we examine the curious process by which a magnetizer induces in his patient every feeling which he wills to establish, and the completeness of consequent sensation in that patient, I fancy we may begin to understand how it is that men and women believe they will find happiness in an evil course, and success in habits which must [AS reads: most] land them in ruin."" [A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 164]

AS: Ok? She's bringing in-- That's the end of the quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 6-7, AS reading]: "[She is saying, on the one hand there is some agent of evil who lures us on, and also] she is [AS reads: she's] bringing in this [AS reads: bringing in here the] notion of hypnotism, insofar that [AS reads: as] a hypnotist could induce into a person a certain state of feeling -- this may be the [AS reads: a] clue that we are looking for. [AS adds: Or] In other words, within our own imagination… [AS: It's a quote.]

"[p. 86 Böhme:]""There is nothing in this world that can touch or kill the soul, no fire nor sword, but only the imagination; that is its poison; for it is originally proceeded out of the imagination, and [AS adds: it] continueth eternally therein."" [Jacob Böhme, Forty Questions (1665), Ques. 11, par. 10]

"He is saying [AS adds: that] the imagination which can kill the soul comes out of the imagination. Your reflective imagination can kill the primal imagination. If we think of the primal act of knowing, willing, feeling and sensing as prior to what takes place in the psychological functioning of the individual, [AS adds: then] on the one hand you have the primal imagination of the individual and on the other [hand] you have that imagination in its reflective awareness, [AS adds: the latter of] which is invested with all the vasanas [AS adds: and tendencies] which will obscure, interfere [and] distort that [AS reads: the] primal imagination; [AS adds: and] so it interferes with the actual observation and understanding [AS adds: of the world] that we should have.

"""All things are existed through divine imagination, and do yet stand in such a birth or geniture, condition, or regiment."" [Jacob Böhme, Of the True and False Light, par. 78 (printed at the end of Several Treatises, 1661); also Epistles (1649), Ep. 6, par. 78.]

"All things exist through the Cosmic Soul's functioning, the Divine Imagination. This Divine Imagination produces the creatures of the world through a vast series of intermediaries, but then when this body is constructed and the psycho-somatic organism is built up, included in that organism is [AS reads: are] the vasanas, [the] [AS adds: or] tendencies of life which are in what we call this soul of the Earth, for that is where the body is being built. The life which is flowing through that body is a life which belongs to this primal creature, and if it is already predisposed or inclined toward evil, then it would be constitutive of the very psycho-somatic organism [AS adds: which would then also be so inclined]. Jung points out that the brain is the [AS reads: an] actual location of [the] archetypal structure of"reality"."

[9½ second pause]

AS: Ok and next is a-- just a little more. Ok? There it is. (Ok.) This quote from page 88. I don't if it's from-- Is this from Böhme, [CDA: Yeah.] from Penny?

CDA: Yeah, (uh-hm).

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 8, AS reading]: "[p. 88]""For the soul is out of the eternal magic fire, which must also have magic food, viz. by or with the imagination."" [Jacob Böhme, Incarnation, Part I, Ch. IV, par. 46]

"""The inward blood of the divine substance is also magical, for the Magia maketh it to be a substance; it is [AS adds: a] spiritual blood, and which can not be touched or stirred by [the] outward substance, but by the imagination only."" [Jacob Böhme, Small Six Points, par. 7]

"""Hold fast to love in your imagination; nothing can take it from you but your own imagination. As [AS reads: So] soon as our imagination goes out of the love, darkness enters the imagination and the devil then has access."" [Jacob Böhme, Gichtel's Letters]

""Having thus proved that Böhme--[AS adds: and] not, I believe, exceptionally, but with great vehemence--insisted on the unquestionable creative might of imagination, it will be interesting to see how far he explains the process by which"longing goeth into being or substance"…"" [A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 88]

AS: It's the end of that quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 8, AS reading]: "Corbin [AS adds: also] makes the point that the imagination is that which transposes the realm of [the] archetypal images and Ideas into being [AS reads: existence]. He spoke about it as the [AS reads: an] intermediary.

"If the imagination is kept fast in its love for the Divine, it will be steering the right course, but when [AS reads: where] there is not that orientation in [AS adds: the] consciousness, it immediately will assume the structure of the bodily and astral consciousness, and spread out into the environment.

"""The will is the [AS reads: this] mysterium magnum, the great mystery of all wonders and secrets, and yet it driveth forth itself, through the imagination of the desiring hunger, into substance."" [Jacob Böhme, Small Six Points, pars. 66-70, 88]

"In the Hidden Teaching P.B. says that we have to think hardness into existence, otherwise we can't have the experience of hardness [AS read: of it]. If we think of it as a pure [AS reads: purely] logical concept, you can follow the rationale that the thinking itself is what produces the hardness. But when we are caught up in this [AS reads: the] situation, that the"I", in thinking, brings about a corporealization of itself in a body, then that body becomes the very obstruction of this will, [AS adds: and] so the will becomes obscured through that second medium [AS reads: that body]."

AS: The quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 8, AS reading]: """It is the original of nature; its desire maketh a representation; [AS: Talking about the imagination.] this representation is no other than the will of the desire, yet the desire maketh in the will such a substance as the will in itself is."" [Jacob Böhme, Small Six Points, pars. 66-70, 88]

"[p. 89 Sinnett:]""The human brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined quality of cosmic…""" [A.P. Sinnett, Occult World, 1881, pp. 129, 131; 4th ed., 1884, pp. 88, 89]

AS: I better read this slow.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, pp. 8-9, AS reading]: """The human brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined quality of cosmic force out of the low, brute energy of Nature; and the complete adept has made himself a centre from which irradiate potentialities that beget correlations upon correlations through Aeons of time to come. This is the key to the mystery of his being able to project into and materialize in the visible world the forms that his imagination has constructed out of inert cosmic matter in the invisible world. The adept does not create anything new, but only utilizes and manipulates materials which Nature has in store around him and material which, throughout [AS reads: through] eternities, has passed through all the forms. He has but to choose the one he wants, and recall it into objective existence." . . . "Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world, and [AS adds: it] becomes an active entity by associating [AS reads: association] itself, coalescing we might term it, with an elemental--that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It [AS reads: It thus-- this thought then] survives as an active intelligence--a creature of the mind's begetting--for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the original intensity of the cerebral action [AS reads: of the thought] which generated it."" [A.P. Sinnett, Occult World, 1881, pp. 129, 131; 4th ed., 1884, pp. 88, 89]

"The terrestrial soul of the Earth assimilates to itself the [AS reads: all these] thoughts that we generate…"

AS: Ok? That was the end of the quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 9, AS reading]: "…a moment of intense hate is a creature in its own right and now joins with [AS adds: the] other aspects in that soul of the Earth. There comes a point where enough of that converts the light into darkness. So if you multiply five billion people who are every moment generating intense hatred and [AS adds: war and then] you think [AS adds: that] war is something accidental, we are fooling ourselves [AS reads: then you fool yourself]. With this knowledge comes a certain responsibility--[that is why we are getting it out now]."

AS: Namely that we think good thoughts.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 9, AS reading]: "The adept is a man proficient in magic, who has some understanding of the [AS reads: these] laws of nature, but has control over himself. If an adept was not of that ability, [AS adds: then] these things would literally crush him. The will of the adept is capable of organizing various forms into an entity and objectifying that [AS reads: it]. The adept is not creating new forms, but [he] can restructuralize certain portions of your being so [that] you function differently. [He could not bring about a complete transformation as that would be interfering with karma.]"

AS (faint): Yeah.

AS/S(?) (very faint): A little more.

S (very faint): Yeah.

AD: I--

AS (simultaneously): A little more.

AD: Go ahead.

AS (simultaneously): Do you-- do you want to finish it?

AD: Yeah, finish it, sure.

AS: Ok. A little more.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 9, AS reading]: "The will is prior to the imagination, which [AS reads: imagination] is the medium through which the will is operative. It is [AS reads: So] the will of the adept [that] forces you to imagine what you are perceiving [AS adds: by imposing itself on your imagination]. But [AS reads: You imagine that] you yourself are doing that [AS reads: it] all the time. [AS: No. "But you yourself are doing that all the time."] It is your will that orders and organized [AS reads: organizes] the knowledge that is taking place in your imagination. What they call the particles and waves are the forces of the will that are operative."

AS: Ok? Um-- Quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 10, AS reading]: """There is a mixed agent, an agent both natural and divine, corporeal and spiritual, a [AS reads: the] universal plastic medium, a common receptacle of the vibrations of movement, and [the] images of form, a fluid and a force that one might call in a certain sense the imagination of nature". … "…the essence of the living light is to be configurative, it is the universal imagination of which each of us appropriates a part, more or less great, according to one's sensibility and memory."" [Eliphas Levi, Histoire de la Magie, pp. 19, 21] [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has "p. 90" in the left margin of this paragraph, referring to p. 90 of A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme.]

""…the world-soul creates--by formative imagination--multitudes of bodies, which I call astral because I know [AS adds: of] no better designation for them; that these are animated by the outbreathing of the derived Spirit of the world-soul; and that they emanate from this sub-creator as necessarily as those thoughts of the [Abyssal] God which create [AS reads: created] Spiritual beings."" [A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 97] [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has "p. ?" in the left margin of this paragraph. It should say p. 97.]

AS: End of quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 10, AS reading]: "The formation of the bodies is due primarily to the imagination of [the] Cosmic Soul. The life, the vivifying of those [AS reads: these] bodies is due to the"out-breathing of the [AS reads: that] derived spirit of the World Soul, the subcreator". The [AS reads: This] vivifying spirit of the body comes from the terrestrial soul, the dragon, that life which is operative in the material body. Insofar that [that] is subject to the planetary aspects, the vivifying agent in the body is subject to those influences. We are trying to lay the background [in order] to understand very specifically the meanings that occur with aspects and the modus operandi [AS reads: and their mode of operation]."

AS: Last quote.

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 10, AS reading]: """Will is an energy whose unique direction is always towards self-perception, so that its reflection on the material plane is that of work directed into its own centre. But this is the distinctive characteristic of the effect of gravity, which is therefore common to every atom composing our own globe, because it is the result of the impress of the nature of will [(as an impulse to self-perception)] in all its agglomeration of partial activities."" [T. Williams, Lucifer, Vol. IX, p. 103] [Note: 3/13/82 partial transcript has "p. 427" in the left margin of this paragraph, referring to p. 427 of A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme.]

"[AS adds: So in other words] Gravity is an analogue for your [AS adds: own] personal will. [AS: And the example--] [Very] often in introspective exercises, let's say [AS reads: suppose] you are in the sky of the mind, you are [AS reads: you're] weightless and expanded, [and] there seems to take place something coming down into you [and it] seems to be the exact size of you body, and [it] fees like a heavy weight. That [AS reads: The] experience is [usually] an indication that your subjectivity has come back and [is] now asserting itself [AS reads: yourself], [AS adds: and] thus you feel weighted down."

[24 second pause]

AS: Any questions?

AD: Go ahead. Geez, you-- you went through a whole class. Well we're-- we're still in the process of trying to build up some background to understand some of the-- There was one other quote that I-- I enjoyed very much. And it was from the Durand article. You remember it went something like this. And this was to point out the superiority of the-- of one of the-- one of the advantages that magical consciousness has over the conceptual.

[Transcriber note: I am using "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture" by Gilbert Durand, James Hillman (Ed.), Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought, New York: Spring Publications, 1976.]

Gilbert Durand [Spring, "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture," p. 91, AD reading]: "The pluralism of traditional man is admirably rendered in astrology, because the subject of astrology is always a collection of often disparate and sometimes contradictory qualities. The pluralism of the ego is rendered in the symbolism of the different astral powers: In the tension or accord between them, [AD: That is, the aspects.] [either] directly or in their aspects…and in the way that the zodiacal signs [AD reads: sign] in which they are set"exalt" or "exile" [AD reads: "exalts" or "exiles"] them. Also, there is no more delicately nuanced description of character than astrology gives us; it will always surpass any unitary reduction of character to a single "temperament" or morphology."

AD: See that keeps the zoo alive. (laughter)

Gilbert Durand [Spring, "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture," pp. 91-92, AD reading]: "In the refinement of his character summations, the famous seventeenth [century] astrologer [Morin de] Villefranche seems to come much closer to Jung's typological character studies than to other psychologists [of the beginning of the century].

"[Furthermore], in its symbolism and the syntax of its aspects, astrology, like all [AD reads: like other] traditional arts…provides us with a model of elementary meta-language operating with pure images, with [AD reads: and] emblems. [AD adds: Now] Our modern [Indo]-European languages [AD reads: language] have great difficulty taking their content seriously; they lean toward [AD reads: towards] nominalism, sophistry, formal logic [AD adds: etc]. But astrological language is figurative -- [even] deific, since it accords divine power to its semantic elements. It operates with the [AD adds:"elements of things", the] "emblems of things"…not with "[mere] words". The complexity of its field of possible combinations makes impossible logical permutations such as those in syllogisms."

AD: You know, Socrates immortal-- man is mortal, Socrates will die.

Gilbert Durand [Spring, "The Image of Man in the Occulted Tradition of Western Culture," p. 92, AD reading]: "The emblems can't be held by syntax. The reason it can be confused with the pragmatism of a language concerned with mathematical physics (astronomy in this case) is that it consists of a topography -- just as does mathematics essentially. But the parallel ends there: the language of astrology is pure quality and pure qualification. In the cosmos it provides us with a model for the unification of the qualities of the"I" and for the way that the multiple hierarchical tendencies of the "I" are organized, [AD: Or disorganized.] like the field of combinations of a complex celestial "machine"."

AD: Hm, that's who I was fighting with.

AS: Yeah, (that/definite)-- (AS laughs a bit)

AD: Alright. Why don't you discuss what we did last week five minutes because it's going to get a little thicker.

S: Five minutes?

AD: Ten minutes, yeah.

S (very faint): Ok.

AD: X minutes.

RG (faint): Was it [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): See if, you know-- Yeah, go ahead.

RG: (Just) right, I mean, see-- seems to me Jung's typology is as mu-- is-- is in a way as much a reduction as a-- less of-- I mean, it seems a fourfold reduction.

AD: Oh but we're re-- but we already have said [student assents, very faint] that. We-- as-- as we're pointing out, you know, Monday night, we're working on the typology of-- and we're finding out that it's much much more complex. [student assents] Perhaps if it is-- it's just a beginning, that he wants us to get going. Because when we try to organize into some system the extrovert, the introvert, the four thinking types, we come up with a-- a real wealth of a confusion, there's so many possible ways of doing it that we thought the first thing to do was itemize all the possible ways of doing it and see if we can abstract some system which would organize them. But it's still a beginning, you know. [short pause] Well, you then understood what we did last week. I didn't. (bit of laughter) All the points are clear.

S (faint): Right.

S (faint): Are they clear?

JfL: Well Avery, in--

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, Jeff.

JfL (simultaneously): In the Harris ar-- article, when he's discussing the Dragon and what he calls the World-Soul--

S: Louder.

AS: Yeah.

JfL: Um--

S (simultaneously): Louder.

AS: The-- that each-- each world has its own soul which retains the--

JfL: Yeah. And--

AS: --traces of life function.

JfL: He describes it as conscious and living.

AD: Louder Jeff.

JfL: He describes it as conscious and living but it's-- it's like receptive, right? It's not really active in that it's not-- it's the very end of the reason-principles in effect, it's not going to produce any more but it's only-- it only becomes conscious-- wasn't there some line where it only becomes conscious through the entities that it unfolds or that participates in that?

S: Uh-hm.

JfL: What is that?

AS (simultaneously): Or lives through them. Oh, the thing about sensations, yeah. That it--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1982 0320a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

[Transcriber note: I am using Studies in Jacob Böhme by A. J. Penny, Wipf & Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 2016.]

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 162, AS reading]: ""[Every sun has a solar spirit." . . . "Every planetary orb of the terrestrial sort a] terrestrial spirit. The spirit of every orb is diffused into, [and] lives throughout, its mineral, vegetable, animal, [and] human kingdoms, [and] is an immortal entity, a living, indivisible, [and] instinctively conscious existence, but is without [AS adds: a] human personality, [and] so [AS adds: is] abstractly conscious of pleasure or pain, but without [AS adds: a] power to determine its own sensations."" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part I, Vol. 1, pp. 100, 101]

JfL: Yeah that and I think towards the end it act-- you actually say that it becomes conscious through the individuals or through the entities that have [AS: Uh-hm.] participated in that. What is it becoming conscious of, I mean what aspect of itself if it's sort of at the end. I mean isn't it Nature in that sense?

CDA: I think it's the very-- [AS: Yeah.] it--

AD (simultaneously): Louder.

CDA: I think it becomes conscious of what we become conscious of. [student assents, faint] So that our very thoughts are what-- what it knows.

S (faint): Yeah.

AB: Isn't it that what-- through thinking we embody it or corporealize it? In that sense it has a life that it wouldn't have had otherwise. Just the same as with all these animals or these astral entities, that when you think in that direction you actually give it a certain form or life. And maybe that's the same for the-- this whole sphere around the Earth which is permeating everything you do.

CDA: I thought the point was that the Dragon is-- is the accumulation of all of the tropes which are all of the activities that man has-- that all the creatures have lived. And that life goes back into each person that's born, that very life structures the body they have.

JfL: What is the-- what is the consciousness that it has? I can't visualize a consciousness that's not personal or not for some higher gain or something like that, I mean--

AD: Why can't [AS simultaneously: Yeah but, I think that--] you conceive of consciousness or mind as [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] generic, why do you have to restrict it [AS simultaneously: But--] to what you understand? Read the part where the-- where the Buddhists handle it. (They'll knock--)

S (simultaneously, faint): (Uh-hm.)

AS: Oh I'm sorry. Well-- Oh here it is.

S (faint): Where are you (Ave)?

AS: This is in Evola, page 66. The part with the causal-- the causal connection?

AD: When he speaks about what you refer to as your "I", which is like on a long chain. (bit of laughter) And that when you reach the end of that chain you get snapped back. The Buddhists approach this problem of the Dragon as, you know, almost hostile. [AS: Uh-hm.] They consider it the real first encounter that you have on the Quest.

AS: Uh-hm. He says--

[Transcriber note: I am using The Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola, Luzac & Company, Ltd., London, 1951.]

Julius Evola [The Doctrine of Awakening, "The Flame and Samsaric Consciousness," p. 68, AS reading]: "For example, in [all] moments of sudden danger; [AS adds: so on] on the point of being threatened [AS adds: by one's life]…an instantaneous reaction takes place. This [AS reads: The] reaction does not proceed from the"will", consciousness, nor from [AS reads: or] the "I", since this part follows only after the initial reaction [is complete; in] the first moment it is preceded by something [AS reads: the first moment is something much] more profound, more rapid, [and] more absolute. … The subterranean roots of [AS adds: all] inclinations, faiths, atavisms, [of invincible and irrational convictions], habits [and] character, all that lives as animality, as biological race, all the urges of the body--[all this] goes [AS reads: go] back to the same principle."

AD: What is that principle?

AS: What is this principle?

AD: Yeah, what is that principle he's referring to?

AS: Well I think that's what we were calling before the Dragon or the life of the-- this terrestrial life that we participate in.

AD (simultaneously, faint): The life-- life of that soul, yeah.

S (faint): That was--

AS: So-- And he says--

Julius Evola [The Doctrine of Awakening, "The Flame and Samsaric Consciousness," pp. 68-69, AS reading]: "Compared with it [AS reads: this], the"will of the 'I'" has, normally, a liberty equivalent to that of a dog tied to [AS reads: of a dog on] a [fairly] long chain (bit of laughter) which he does not [AS reads: and it doesn't] notice until he has passed a certain limit. If one goes [AS reads: But if he does go] beyond that limit, the [AS reads: this] profound force is not slow to awaken, either to supplant the "I" [or to] mislead it…"

AS: And so on.

AD: No, no, that-- Loud!!

AS: Yeah.

Julius Evola [The Doctrine of Awakening, "The Flame and Samsaric Consciousness," pp. 68-69, AS reading]: "If one goes beyond that limit, the profound force is not slow to awaken, either to supplant the"I" or [to] mislead it, making [AS reads: make] it believe that it wills that which, in fact, the [AS reads: this force, this biotic] force itself wills. The wild force of imagination and of suggestion takes us to the same point…

"This force, which is connected with the emotive and irrational energies, gradually identifies itself as the very force which rules the profound functions of physical life, over which [the]"will", [the] "mind" and [the] "I" have very little influence, to which they are external and on which they live parasitically, extracting the essential fluids yet without having to go down for them into the heart of the trunk. Thus one must ask [oneself], What, of this "my" body, can be justifiably [AS reads: can really be] thought of as subject to "my" will? Do "I" will "my" breath or the mixtures of the digestive juices by which food is digested [AS reads: or the digestion]? [AS adds: Or] Do "I" will my form, my flesh… [AS: So we come to this] …disconcerting conclusion: "You are not life in yourself. You do not exist. You cannot say"mine" of anything. You do not possess life--[AS adds: but] it is life that possesses you. You suffer it."

AS: (Right.) You can go (through it). I-- oh yeah. Well in the-- in this paper that he--

JfL: It's the vivifying force of the Nature principle or the Dragon that I'm confusing with, you know, that-- that is developing the vehicles for our use, and our life that we coming in on, I mean--

AS: Yeah, he made the point in the paper-- although the quote says that it lives through all of these kingdoms, says "We should reverse it perhaps and say that our life is [JfL assents] a participation in its life" rather than saying that-- well, which is the same thing, "It lives in every one of its kingdoms."

[short pause; someone drawing]

AD/S(?): [one/two words inaudible]

AS: And that next quote--

[3/13/82 Partial Transcript, p. 5, AS reading]: """Insphered in every solar, [aromal], or terrestrial planetary world, is an appropriate [AS reads: is a] World-Soul, living in the life of all its distinct creations, [and] permeating alike [AS adds: all] its atmospheres [AS reads: atmosphere]…""" [T. Lake Harris, Arcana of Christianity, Part I, Vol. 1, pp. 100, 101]

AS: And so on. Now-- I mean, our life interacts with that insofar as then we have certain thoughts and all the creatures within that have certain thoughts and so on.

JfL: Well fine. Well then it would seem like--

AS: They would go to contribute more to this structure of that life.

JfL: But then it would seem that the-- this force would be sort of inertia or something like that, you're injecting in it-- But it seems like it has a personality of some sort. [AS: Right.] It has [AS simultaneously: (Right/Yeah) but the--] character, you-- you know. The passiveness and the activeness of it I-- Am I making that clear at all, that--

AD: No.

JfL: --the distinction? In one case you've got the-- this-- this Dragon which is sort of like the-- It's the vestige of the life that's lived here.

AD: Yeah.

JfL: And, in-- in that case it's kind of passive, it doesn't have the ability to do anything or to act out anything, it uses all the--

AD (simultaneously): Well I wouldn't go that far with it. (some laughter)

JfL: What?

AD: I wouldn't go that far. What-- what all-- all that-- all that-- the remark that was made was that it has no organs by which to have [S simultaneously: Yeah.] particular sensations. [AS: Right.] But to assume from that that it hasn't got knowledge of some kind, whether even below what we-- we refer to it I mean is taking too big a step. It does have understanding. You'll find out as soon as you try to take something that belongs to it, it'll attack, and appropriately, precisely, so don't-- The point in this article of course is the Buddhists are trying to bring out the fact that this is the not-I, alright, and this is what eventually has to be encountered or overcome or made into an ally. [S: (Alright.)] Also what the alchemists are going to work with too.

And part of the reason we were doing this was to substantiate some of the thoughts that we had about that, if we think of this as the Earth [diagram], and any one of these, alright, we would-- you could imagine so to speak a belt around it which we're calling its particular life-continuum which surrounds that. So that any planet, alright, would have that around it. It doesn't mean that necessarily it's going to be a corporeal creature like we see ourselves on Earth, we don't know what they would be in other planets. If they are, so to speak, creatures there they certainly can be formed differently than we're formed. And what we perceive, alright, we may not be able to even perceive them, well, if I could reverse it. So-- This was one of the reasons why we brought this in.

And that, [someone drawing] another reason in that chart was when he said that the medieval man did not feel himself, so to speak, divided or alienated from the world, and we said that if we took the chart of an individual here [diagram], we said that the chart of the individual participated in the chart of the Earth. So there was this-- there was like a-- a recognition, unconscious or conscious, but there was this recognition that our understanding, the thoughts we have, all these things, are participating in the soul of the Earth, the knowledge that the soul of the Earth has. So it's our participation in its aspects. And there again that brought up the notion that the individual man with a magical consciousness doesn't feel himself as other or alien from the world he lives in, there was a kind of feeling that he was part of the world. And especially is this very pronounced in the Renaissance period when they tried to bring that back. At any rate, I think it'll give you a little bit of a background we need in order to understand some of the things the alchemists will attempt. Do we have any more thoughts or suggestions? Go ahead. Go ahead, yeah.

DB: Yeah. I-- well-- two questions actually. I guess the first one would be that the-- this Dragon or this-- the totality of animals, this menagerie, which constitutes the imagination for us, it's-- well, let me just see if I understand. It would be these animals then which transform the archetypal Ideas into what becomes our experience there. I mean the world we live in, so to speak, is the effect of their activity.

[11½ second pause]

AD: I still don't know what you're trying to say, Dave.

DB: Well, um-- See, on the one hand, it seems that we could-- [short pause] I guess that there are a couple of levels of imagination here and they're probably not distinguished [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Well-- What we're laying down is that, if you remember, and we spoke about this a few times, that there seems to be two streams. There's a memory which the body claims and which is inherent in the body. And there's a soul who's going to deal and have to deal with those tendencies in the body and how to direct or guide them. [DB assents] The powers that come from the soul will be in conflict with, quite often, most of the time, if we're awake, with-- with the tendencies which are in the body and have a-- you know, their own way of operating. And so we're setting-- you know, that is going to be the-- the backdrop, the stage on which the quest is going to take place.

DB: Uh-hm.

S: But--

DB: And-- and so to speak the-- the powers of the soul then would become activated in opposition or response to the effectiveness, the [couple/few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Next to the body's vasanas.

DB: Or the bo-- the body's vasanas. Ok now-- um-- [short pause] Would-- would it mean to say when you spoke of Renaissance or medieval man as being more at one with the world in which he lives that there was not this felt separation or distinction between the elements within the body, the-- the vasanas, that there would be a closer identification with them, and that what has-- the potential for what has occurred since then in terms of this felt distinction is the processes of the powers of the soul becoming actualized?

AD: Well, I don't know if we could put it in those absolute terms. I would say something to the effect that in the thousand years where this intellectual development has taken place, alright, there's take-- this development of the conceptual tendency at the expense of all the others, this intellectual tendency does not have to be, so to speak, a soul-- something that belongs to the soul. An intellectual tendency can be as much a tool that the Dragon is using to justify what it's doing.

DB: Yes, right.

AD: Alright, it can just as easily be that and not be, you know, a power of the soul or, let's say a rediscovery of one's own soul and return to its origin.

DB (faint): Most (definitely).

AD: So the greatest acumen is going to be called for which is being used and for what. Now, most of us when we say we're reasoning, we really are rationalizing. I would say that's obvious the Dragon has just taken over the power of the intellect and converting it to its own use and justifying its-- its, you know, acts, whatever they may be.

DB (faint): Right. So-- so that the experience of-- of alienation that pervades contemporary society is just as much a product of that Dragon's functioning.

AD: It can be.

DB (faint): (It's exaggerated.)

AD: It can be to the extent that the ego wants to deify itself, [DB: Yes.] hold itself responsible for everything in the world, then it certainly looks like the Dragon is just using that power for its own self-aggrandizement. There's not going to be any simple thumb of the rule method. That's out.

DB: Uh-hm, right. So-- so then that-- and so the-- the intellect that the-- the Dragon requires us in order that its life can be made conscious.

AD (simultaneously): That it could live the good life, four roses. (bit of laughter)

DB: Four roses.

AD: Yes. Dragon's [DB simultaneously: Ok.] going to require your intellect, sure.

DB (faint): Right. And we [couple words inaudible] in order to become more conscious of our thought(s).

[short pause]

AD (very faint): Alright. [S, very faint: Yeah.] Anyone else? Speak up.

CS: Seems to me the Dragon seems to be winning, doesn't it, in the last thousand years.

AD: Seems that way. [CS simultaneously: What can we--] Especially the last hundred year.

CS: (So/Though) we try to control our thoughts, what can we do?

AD: Well, you have heard about-- The quest is one way of dealing with that. That is, the philosophic understanding. If it's understanding it grows, and it grows slowly and gradually, but it is probably the only protection we really have. By philosophic understanding means of course mystical practices, developments, [S simultaneously, faint: Which do you mean?] you know, moral codes and all that. I don't know of any other. [short pause] Alright. I think I must have gone through that passage half a dozen times and maybe now it's beginning to reach us, get home to us. So very often I mean, when I'm discussing, you know, with someone, including myself, and if I see the Dragon is winning I go away. Don't try to follow him (and) don't try to fight him. And I can sometimes almost smell his presence. He's talking to me. Let's-- let's go on to something now-- let's continue with strange situation that we've placed ourselves in. [short pause] The-- there's going to be something very difficult that ultimately has to come out of this and I'm not going to get into it now. But, I thought-- well since you're so quiet, take advantage. There's an article in this-- one of these books of PB that is specifically called "The Bodhicitta". [short pause] (Now) this has to be in contradistinction-- the bodhicitta or this image of God, you think it might be the same thing, image of God, bodhicitta, thought of enlightenment? It might be the same thing, what do you think?

S (faint): No.

AD: What are some of the definitions Jung has of the image of God? Well, we could look them up.

S: Yeah.

AS: Yeah, there is some in the Volume 14. [one/two words inaudible] (but--)

S: 88.

AS: Speaks about it as the fragment of Divine wisdom which is implanted in us. And maybe that's not Jung.

AD: Well-- [40¼ second pause] Here's a-- here's one from "Christ, A Symbol of the Self".

[short pause]

C.G. Jung [CW 9, Part II, Aion, "Christ, A Symbol of the Self," p. 37, paragraph 70, AD reading]: ""And this therefore is to be considered as the image of God in man, that the human spirit has the same motions and senses as God has, though not in the same way as God has them."" Origen [(185-254)] is very much more explicit: The imago Dei [AD reads: image of God] imprinted on the soul, not on the body, is an image of an image, "for my soul is not directly the image of God, but is made after the likeness of the former image.""

AD: That's pretty good. And then--

C.G. Jung [CW 9, Part II, Aion, "Christ, A Symbol of the Self," pp. 38-39, paragraph 71, AD reading]: "St. Augustine [(354-430)] distinguishes between the God-image which is Christ and the image which is implanted in man as a means or possibility of becoming like God. The God-image is not in the corporeal man, but in the anima rationalis, the possession of which distinguishes man from animals."The God-image is within, not in the body. . . . . Where the understanding is, where the mind is, where the power of investigating truth is, there God has his image." Therefore we should remind ourselves, [says Augustine], that we are fashioned after the image of God nowhere save [AD reads: except] in the understanding: ". . . but where man knows himself to be [made] after the image of God, there he knows there is something more in him than is given to the beasts." [AD rereads: "…he knows something more in him than is given to the beast."] … …Christ is an embodiment of the God-image, whose totality is specially emphasized by [St.] Augustine."

AD: Any of you know of any other quotes?

S: Well--

AD: Yeah?

S (faint): Yeah.

AB: Would it be possible to say that this image of God is the only image that really is from outside of the Dragon; that most of these images that we operate with are either from the Dragon or a living through of that.

AD: Well, what do--

AB (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible]

AD: What do you think he would mean by image?

AB: Well-- you mean what-- I don't think he would agree with what I just said.

AD: Well, don't worry about that. What would a God-image mean?

S (very faint): Yeah.

AS: He said is-- is it really an image at all [AB simultaneously: No. It's not really an image but--] in the sense of the way we've been using images.

AD: It's not really an image.

AB: But within the psychic entity that has predominated or lives in this Dragon, there's this life or spark that isn't from the Dragon.

AD: Alright, you read that, ok? Just read a page. Now, (I/I'd) like to tell stories and fairytales, I find them very instructive. This is--

AB (simultaneously): Once upon a time--

AD: This is from a novel by Za-- Bulwer-Lytton called A Strange Story. I'd just like you to read that page.

AB: Well--

AS: What page Alan?

AB: 185.

[Transcriber note: I am using A Strange Story by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1892.]

Edward Bulwer-Lytton [A Strange Story, p. 166, AB reading]: "I looked, and gradually, [and] as shade after shade falls on the mountain side, while the clouds gather, and the sun vanishes at last, so the form and face on which I looked changed from exuberant youth into infirm old age,--the discoloured wrinkled skin, the bleared dim eye, the flaccid muscles, the brittle sapless bones. Nor was the change that of age alone; the expression of the countenance had passed into gloomy discontent, and in every furrow a passion or [a] vice had sown the seeds of grief.

"And the brain now opened on my sight, with all its labyrinth of cells. I seemed to have the clew to every winding in the maze.

"I saw therein a moral world, charred and ruined, as, in some fable I have read, the world of the moon is described to be; yet withal it was a brain of magnificent formation."

AD: He's speaking about somebody's brain now, go ahead. (bit of laughter)

Edward Bulwer-Lytton [A Strange Story, pp. 166-167, AB reading]: "The powers abused to evil had been originally of rare order,--imagination, and scope, the energies that dare, the faculties that discover. But the moral part of the brain had failed to dominate the mental,--defective veneration of what is good or great; cynical disdain of what is right and just; in fine, a great intellect first misguided, then perverted, and now falling with the decay of the body into ghastly but imposing ruins,--such was the world of that brain as it had been three years ago. And still continuing to gaze thereon, I observed three separate emanations of light,--the one of a pale red hue, the second of a pale azure, the third a silvery spark.

"The red light, which grew paler and paler as I looked, undulated from the brain along the arteries, the veins, the nerves. [AD, faint: Go ahead.] And I murmured to myself,"Is this the principle of animal life?"

"The azure light equally permeated the frame, crossing and uniting with the red, but in a separate and distinct ray, exactly as, in the outer world, a ray of light crosses or unites with a ray of heat, though in itself a separate individual agency. And again I murmured to myself,"Is this the principle of intellectual being, directing or influencing that of animal life; with it, yet not of it?""

AD: Sun and Moon? [short pause] The red, the blue.

AB: The red, the blue, and then the spark.

AD: Go ahead, go on now.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton [A Strange Story, p. 167, AB reading]: "But the silvery spark! What was that? Its centre seemed the brain; but I could fix it to no single organ. [Nay], wherever I looked through the system, it reflected itself as a star reflects itself upon water. And I observed that while the red light was growing feebler and feebler, and the azure light was confused, irregular,--now obstructed, now hurrying, now almost lost,--the silvery spark was unaltered, [AB adds: or] undisturbed."

AD: Is that the star that Emerson spoke about, "hitch your wagon to a star"? (bit of laughter)

AB/S(?): It's already hitched. (bit of laughter)

AD: Well, no better in there.

AB: No. (laughter)

AD: He said-- he said that that star is like a reflection in the water. If you think of a body of water, [AB, faint: Right.] and the star gets reflected in that or the buddhi gets reflected in that, it seems to be everywhere in the water but when you try to grasp it you're only going to get more water.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AB: The animals ran away from the spark?

AD: Do you get the picture here? That silvery spark? [student assents, very faint] I call it the Nous atom. And, Buddhists call it the bodhicitta. There's all kinds of names for it. But, you can see there that they're speaking about Sun, Moon and Mercury. The Mercury would probably be represented by that silvery spark, the red would be represented by the Sun, and the blue some ti-- it's more blackish than blue, would represent the desires which are in the so-called intellect guiding and directing that red. So, I-- it gives us something concrete to work with, this bodhicitta or this-- this principle which you remember Plotinus spoke about a light which is emanated from the soul and given to the body. [Note: See Plotinus, I.1.7.] Would you mind reading some extracts? This is an article by Beatrice Suzuki and it's called the "Bodhicitta". It's in one of PB's books. He calls it Asiatic Notes. [Note: See Paul Brunton online archives.] He usually has a reason for collecting notes. Just read some of the pages. It's about a five page article so-- It really should be read in a Buddhist class but-- Just indiscriminately.

AS: Ok. "Is the goal…"

S (faint): Yeah.

[Transcriber note: I am using "Bodhicitta" by Beatrice Lane Suzuki in Buddhism in England, Volumes 13-14, Buddhist Lodge, 1938.]

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 109, AS reading]: "Mahayanists hold that every creature is possessed of Bodhicitta [(Japanese: Bodaishin)], which comprises our very essence, consists in wisdom (Bodhi), and signifies the desire for enlightenment. It is the goal of [practical] Buddhist life to arouse and develop the Bodhicitta [in oneself and others] …"…and Bodhicitta is the [AS reads: a] name given to a form of the Dharmakaya or Bhutatathata as it…""

AD (simultaneously): Or Intellectual-Principle. English.

AS: It's English, the--

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 109, AS reading]: ""…or Bhutatathata [AS reads: Intellectual-Principle] as it manifests itself…""

AD (simultaneously): Propaganda. You notice they say the Buddhist. It's not only a Buddhist theory. (bit of laughter)

AS: [one/two words inaudible] Ok.

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 109, AS reading]: ""…and [AS reads: the] Bodhicitta is the name given to a form of the Dharmakaya or Bhutatathata [AS reads: of the Intellectual-Principle] as it manifests itself in the human heart, and its perfection, or negatively its liberation from all egoistic impurities, constitutes [the state of] Nirvana."

"The Bodhicitta is latent in all beings and is a matter of growth, taking many lives to mature."

AD: It almost sounds as though he's saying there we've got to produce the very substance of God in us. Go on.

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 109, AS reading]: "This Bodhicitta is the germ which sustains a being, for as it is latent in any being, it cannot be destroyed or hidden. …"When the Bodhicitta is aroused, the fact becomes a personal event. The Bodhisattva and the Bodhicitta are inseparable.""

AD: What he's saying there, a personal event, is that it's something that you have an absolute knowledge of, it's something that you personally experience. The bodhicitta gets aroused and there's a desire on your part either to practice compassion or to get to the bottom of all this. It gets aroused and-- and it's something that you are personally aware of, it comes up in you and you know it. That's what he means it's a per-- it's a personal event. And you have to remember, she's very very devoted to Suzuki. Go on.

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 109, AS reading]: ""…it is the maturing of the Bodhicitta which makes the Bodhisattva possible.""

AS: And he goes through three-- four methods. "How is the Bodhicitta to be awakened?" And then some more-- [AD: Yeah well--] more propaganda I'll-- Again--

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," pp. 109-110, AS reading]: ""It [AS reads: Bodhicitta] is free from compulsive activities; it has no beginning, it has no end; it cannot be defiled by impurities; [it] cannot be obscured by egoistic [individualistic] prejudices; it is incorporeal; it is the spiritual essence [of Buddhas]; it is the source of all virtues, earthly as well as transcendental; it is constantly becoming, [AS adds: and] yet its original purity is never lost.

""It may be likened unto the ever-shining sunlight which may temporarily be hidden behind [the] clouds. …the Citta itself forever remains free from these [AS reads: the] external impurities. It may [again] be likened unto [AS adds: an] all-comprehending space which remains eternally identical [AS reads: identical eternally], whatever happenings [AS reads: happens] and changes may occur in things enveloped therein. When the Bodhicitta manifests itself in a relative world, it looks as if it were subject to constant becoming, but in reality it transcends all determinations…"" [short pause]

"[The] Bodhicitta means the awakening of the desire for supreme enlightenment…"

[short pause]

AS: Um-- "The arisal of…" He speaks about all-knowledge or sar-- sarvajnana. He says--

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 110, AS reading]: ""It does not [AS reads: This doesn't] mean that the Buddha knows every individual thing, but that he has grasped the fundamental principle of existence [and that] he has penetrated deep down into the centre of his own being. When the Bodhicitta is aroused the Bodhisattva's hold on all-knowledge is definite and firm." … We are perhaps all Bodhisattvas [AS reads: We are all Bodhisattvas perhaps], but the notion has not been brought home to our consciousness, the image has not been vivid enough to make us feel and live the fact. The Citta is aroused, and [AS adds: then] the fact becomes a personal event. The Bodhisattva is now quivering with life."

[short pause]

AS: He makes a reference to prajna.

Beatrice Lane Suzuki ["Bodhicitta," p. 110, AS reading]: "Enlightenment or Prajna is what constitutes Buddhahood…"

AD: You get the feeling of bodhicitta?

AS (faint): What'd he say?

AD: I-- we were speaking about this star within us. And we have to remember it's in us in this very peculiar way like when the Moon is reflected in a body of water, alright, so in the same way that bodhicitta is reflected in us as though in a-- as though the Moon reflected in a body of water and in meditation, in very-- very intense meditation or withdrawal, one very often will see that star but like directly in front of him and high above. And, he doesn't-- he doesn't un-- he doesn't know yet that it's within him and then sometimes he'll see that that star comes right down into him. He thinks it's actually come down in meditation, you know, and that it's joined to here but it isn't, it isn't quite like that. Point-- it still remains where it is but now he feels-- he feels much closer to it. And that would be like the arousal of the bodhicitta in the person as a personal event. But, for some people like that are psychically orientated or let's say their mind, or their imagination which has been stripped of a lot of, you know, superfluous matter, in their meditations they very often will see that star shining directly above and they will have that-- the experience of the light of that star coming right into them. And then they'll have the experience further of that star actually coming into them and they feel that the star is within them. And, as I said, then there's this arousal, one feels the bodhicitta has become active in him. And he may-- he may then make all kinds of promises, you know.

AS (faint): We should probably--

AD: Well, here, which will-- they will get actualized but not in the way he thinks. Uh--

[short pause]

AB: Anthony, but, (bit of laughter) when we-- you say that this bodhicitta becomes activated. It seems then that it's not only a reflection like the Moon on water but it's actually organizing your life or there's a restructuring of your direction because of that.

AD: Yeah. Yeah something very definite takes place, which-- I mean, we can only understand psychologically, you know, when it comes into our psychological understanding or in our-- into our mind. It seems that it pictorializes everything that was going on which was outside of our imagination. And we-- we get-- we come up with a lot of theories but we-- The point would be this here, if-- if that is the Mercurius that the alchemists are speaking of-- In other words, if we went to the novel, there was these two drops, alright, the red and almost black drop, and then there was this silvery s-- spark in him. And, the-- it-- I don't know, was that mentioned, like as a person is dying those two drops gradually disintegrate and disappear. But the-- the spark itself-- Here let-- let me put it this way, if you took this pot of water that the Moon was shining in, and you boiled the water away, I mean, you didn't do anything to the reflection of that spark of light in the water. That's an eternal-- an eternal generated act on the part of the soul. Let's go back and open up to something from our past, uh--

S (very faint): Go ahead.

AD: I forgot where it was. It was in Jung, the--

[short pause, flipping of pages]

AB: When you experience what they call the revulsion, is that because that's been activated?

AD: Well the revulsion is a reaction to the ego.

AB: But is it-- require that that spark be activated in order to reject--

AD: To experience the revulsion.

AB: Yeah.

AD: Yeah, the revulsion is simply-- When that spark or when the experience of the bodhicitta in whatever form takes place, then it's like you-- you're revolted or you feel a certain revulsion towards the ego and all its ways. And usually you can go on a kind of "holy anger," quote unquote.

AB (simultaneously): Right. You realize that this Dragon is living itself out through you and you become disgusted (within it).

AD (simultaneously): Well-- well, you become disgusted with your ego, it's personal.

AB: Personal?

AD: You find out it's not such a great thing. (bit of laughter) As a matter of fact, that it really constantly is interfering with the life. Alright let's-- let's return to Jung, uh-- [DR simultaneously: The one you were reading yesterday.] Start from the bottom and read again, let's see.

CS/S(?): What is this in?

AS: This is Jung, "On the Nature of the Psyche". [S simultaneously, faint: What?] [one/two words inaudible] paragraph, yeah.

CS/S(?) (faint): What page?

AS: Um--

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 192, paragraph 389, AS reading]: "Of this natural light…"

AS: Well, should I read a little earlier than--

AD: Yeah.

S (very faint): Go ahead.

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," pp. 192-193, paragraph 389, AS reading]: "This light is the lumen naturae [AS: the natural light] which illuminates consciousness, and the scintillae [AS: the sparks] are germinal luminosities shining forth from the darkness of the unconscious. … Of this natural light innate in man Dorn says:"For the life, the light of men, shineth in us, albeit dimly, and as though in darkness. It is not to be extracted from us, yet it is in us and not of us, but of Him to Whom it belongs, Who deigns to make us his dwelling-place. . . . He has implanted that light in us that we may see in its light the light of Him Who dwells in inaccessible light, and that we may excel His other creatures; in this wise we are made like unto Him, that He has given us a spark of His light. Thus the truth is to be sought not in ourselves, but in the image of God which is within us.""

AD: Now the accuracy of this quote by Jung shows that he evidently had some understanding. So, we have to consi-- you have to consider very carefully some of the things he says. But, if you remember, in the previous quotation Augustine spoke about the fact that this light is not in an animal. It is in us. Remember? [student assents, faint] So you would-- in an animal you would see the red and the black drops but you wouldn't see that silvery light in the animal, alright, and Augustine made that clear. And, Augustine having lived like an animal for thirty-five years, he must have had very personal experience of that. [student assents, faint] Took all the-- all of his mother's persuasion to change around. But over here now he's saying something similar, that this light shines into us but is not of us. Read it again, it's interesting.

AS (faint): Yeah.

S: What page are you on?

S (simultaneously): What page is that?

AS: Uh--

AD: Oh he read this over and over and over again.

S (simultaneously, faint): Yeah, right. Uh-huh.

AS (simultaneously): It's the "Nature of the Psyche", paragraph 389, volume 8. Some-- maybe I should read this little quote first.

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 192, paragraph 389, AS reading]: ""[Thus] little by little he will come to see [AS reads: he comes to see] with his mental eyes a number of sparks shining day by day [and] more and more [and] growing into such a great light that thereafter all things needful to him will be made known.""

AD: Now he's talking there about meditation and the experience of photism.

S (faint): What?

AD: Of photism. You know, you see sparks of light when you're meditating, every now and then you see spark, they-- they gather momentum, more and more of them keep coming. Reread.

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 192, paragraph 389, AS reading]: ""[Thus] little by little he will come to see with his mental eyes a number of sparks shining day by day and more and more [and] growing into such a great light that thereafter all things needful to him will be made known.""

AD: With a little work.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 192, paragraph 389, AS reading]: "This light is the lumen naturae [AS: the light of nature] which illuminates consciousness…"

AD: Well, do you think it illuminates consciousness [AS simultaneously: Well I--] or illuminates our mind?

AB: Well, that's what he means.

AD: Huh?

AB: That's what he means.

AD: That's what he means? [AS/S(?) simultaneously: Yeah.] I think so too.

AS (faint): Illuminates mind too.

S (simultaneously, faint): He means illuminate consciousness?

AB (faint): [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): I'm sorry?

AS (simultaneously with S and AD): No, consciousness doesn't need to be illuminated. Well--

AD: He doesn't-- he never uses consciousness like Vedantists do.

AS/S(?) (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): Right. (S laughs a bit)

AD: Alright. So then it is these lights that are illuminating our mind. And he calls that the natural light.

AS (faint): Right.

S (faint): The light of nature?

AD: Light of nature.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

S (very faint): Yeah.

S: Is he referring to the bodhicitta? Is that--

AD: I don't know.

S (faint): (Me either.)

S (faint): Ok.

AD: Read some more.

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 192, paragraph 389, AS reading]: "This light is the lumen naturae [AS: light of nature or natural light] which illuminates consciousness [AS reads: which illumines our minds], and the scintillae [AS: the sparks] are germinal luminosities shining forth from the darkness of the unconscious."

AD: You know, like when you're meditating you get a photism? It's coming from the unconscious. Go ahead Louis.

LDS: Isn't he driving at there the fact that the-- the bodhicitta's being built up? It's ge--

[Audio File 1982 0320a Ends]

[Audio File 1982 0320b Begins]

LDS: --depends on which point of view you're taking.

AD: Alright. Let's take that point of view.

LDS: Yeah I (take this point of view). (bit of laughter)

S (faint): Yeah.

LDS: Yeah.

AD: So like if you meditate, you know, in and out, day in and day out and finally you begin to get photisms and gradually this light become more and more, you know, available, and all these photisms suddenly might break out into a huge light.

LDS: So those photisms are-- their source--

AD: Well they're indications, you know, [LDS simultaneously: Sources, yeah.] they're indications that every now and then the heavy veil, you know, of thought, you know, the mind's thinking and activity, every now and then it just momentarily-- or momentarily is too long. Instant. That's too long. Second. (bit of laughter). Well, that's too long. Thousandth of a second, alright, you break through. That light can get through. And the more the-- the mind is attenuated, the less and less thoughts, alright, the more chance of this light coming through. And then if the mind even freezes for a few instants that light will shine through like a sun.

AS: Think-- yeah.

LDS (simultaneously): Those photisms, implicit in those, is there some experience for people, that when you see the photisms, sometimes immediately after it you would have an insight into something?

AD: That could be, sure.

LDS: Like you may be thinking on a problem--

AD: That could be.

LDS: --very concentratedly and you see a photism and then after that you have an insight.

AD: It was a temporary stillness of the mind. That's why there was some maybe clarification of a problem.

S (very faint): Right.

AS: He has that line in the Wisdom, I don't know if it's appropriate, in "The Secrete of the I" where he says "and able at any time to shine through its projections". [Note: See Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself, p. 121, 2015 edition.] "The Secret of the I", [AD: Yeah.] it's when he's speaking of the Witness. [AD simultaneously: Yeah, in other words this--] And he's saying it's not like something is built up, it's just the veil is put apart for a minute.

AD (simultaneously): In other words he's saying that this bodhicitta or this-- this Nous atom can at any time shine through its projections. But that would mean that I, you, would [AS simultaneously: Have to be attenuated.] be a projection from it.

AS: Yeah. And that project-- That was the thing we kept saying. The projec-- the personality is projected from it. But in the projection it veils what projected it, as it were. I mean if you could put it that way, it blocks-- it-- in a sense it's blocking the light.

AD (simultaneously): But you can see where mentalism is coming from now?

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): Yeah.

AD: Mentalism is coming from that. It's coming from the fact that this bodhicitta is what projects out this human being who thinks that he is the source and that he's located in the world, and this whole-- everything that we've done, everything we work with, we could s-- we could locate, so to speak, or have its premises in the bodhicitta and work it out from there. In other words, from the bodhicitta or from the inner self of this person, the whole world gets projected out. But if the whole world gets projected out from within this person, then that means the zodiac, the planetary spheres, the sublunary element, everything is within the person 'cause that's going to be projected and seen as though it's out there, alright. So that makes this bodhicitta, so to speak, immensely interesting. The whole of the Intelligible World is already contained within the bodhicitta and it projects forth from within itself the human being within which it supposedly resides in. And you remember how that residence was. I mean, no mailman will deliver you mail under those pretenses. (AD and student laughing) But, the-- you see that the Yogacara school would be coming from that position. The whole world is a projection from Mercurius and spreading out and you view it-- you put yourself in it and then you view it as though you were in it and you have a subject-object relationship. Now the complexity is going to get more involved but still it-- after a while you're going to see the truth and the beauty of these teachings. When they speak about the Intelligible World as within you, they are speaking literally. You actually can have the experience of everything inside you and getting projected out. Go ahead Louis.

LDS: Ok, we spoke a few nights ago about when this light from the soul is given off it descends-- you said to think of it as descending down to the fixed stars and planetary spheres and so on. And I think he spoke of, it's picking up the magnum opus as it first begins to descend. But then that magnum opus will be achieved only after several-- you know, countless incarnations.

AD: Well that's what the Platonists say, yeah. That's what the Platonists would-- None of these things belong to me. I mean, [LDS simultaneously: No I remember--] ideas-- ideas are good that way. No one could take out a patent on them. Marvelous thing, public domain. [S assents, faint] And then they write it in a book and they-- and you can't-- and you can't say it's your idea anymore, it's-- Go ahead, (Vic/Dick).

LR: What-- how would PB discuss this idea?

AD: I don't think he discusses it, as a matter of fact he makes a remark somewhere that others will follow and will come out with all the details. And so Avery got sick. (laughter)

LR: Um--

AD: The details of mentalism have not been worked out. (laughter)

LR (faint): He might get sick again.

AS: I know there was a connection but-- (laughter)

AD (amidst laughter, faint): [couple/three words inaudible]

LR: Well--

AS: He actually had that-- the jealously gu-- he-- he had this line about the jealously guarded hidden teaching will come out before the end of the century from its guardians. [Note: See Paul Brunton, Notebooks, V13, 20:2.64. "A jealously guarded hidden teaching far more advanced and complicated than the present one will be revealed by its custodians before this century closes. But when this does occur, the revelation will only extend and not displace the foundation for it which is given in these pages."]

LR: So you actually think-- I mean [AS, faint: But--] it's (perfect). More specifically what I'm saying is, (he/it) doesn't have a-- he doesn't use the word 'bodhicitta', he doesn't seem to discuss that-- that idea of the evolving germ. I didn't mean it that way. I--

AD (simultaneously, faint): Yeah.

LR: Yeah. (some laughter)

S (amidst laughter, faint): Well you got sick.

AD: When you get infected. (laughter)

AS/S(?) (faint): Oh a germ, ok.

RG (simultaneously, faint): But he does talk about the Overself there.

LR (simultaneously): But, that he does have, you know, [RG simultaneously: That's fitting.] the Witness in there, the Overself, I mean-- Somehow--

AD: He even took out the quotation of the heart-atom.

LR: Of the heart-atom.

RG (simultaneously): Yeah, the heart-atom.

AS: Yeah.

AD: He even took it out because I didn't [one word inaudible] (through some of them).

AS (simultaneously): Took them all out.

LR: It doesn't really match with this, you know, his-- his idea of the heart center, that atom--

AS: Oh yes it does.

S (faint): Sure.

AS: Doesn't he say it's from his own Overself that every individual receives the world-picture? [Note: See Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself, p. 45, 2015 edition.]

LR: Yes, yes, [student assents, faint] now that part of it, yes, as far as that--

AS (simultaneously): And that-- and that stream, the triune stream and so on?

LR: Yes, as far as the world is projected out from there, it may-- it [AS simultaneously: Oh I see.] does seem identical.

AS: You're talking about the other aspect of it?

S (simultaneously): You guys talking about evolving aspect?

LR (simultaneously): But the other aspect of it going through, you know, lifetime after lifetime evolving and accumulating this wisdom. You know, he seems to have it from the mentalistic point of view but I-- [student assents] I can't recall where he would discuss it the other way.

RG (simultaneously): In "The Secret of the I" he talks about the thread on-- on which all the incarnations are-- [AS simultaneously: Yeah. Uh-hm.] are linked and develop.

AS: Sure.

LR (faint): Yeah.

JfL: I think in the Wisdom too, in the [AS simultaneously: Yeah, uh-hm.] World-Mind chapter he does that. There's a paragraph that sounds like it.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: Well-- well let's not concern ourselves with that.

S (faint): Yeah.

DB: In [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] regards to the-- these photisms, do the-- do the particular sparks of light represent a depotent-- depotentializing of the vasanas that are within the body?

AD: No. [short pause] Like I said it's-- it really amounts to, and I want to give it the-- it really amounts to an attenuation of the mind to its contents. It's like if you take a balloon, you know, and yous-- you hold it open, you know, you cut it and you hold it open, and you put it in front of a light, alright, you can't see it but as you keep stretching the balloon, alright, and it gets thinned out, then it will-- the rays of light start coming through and if you really can stretch it out far enough more light comes through. So what's-- what happens in (night) meditation, [AS simultaneously: Sometime it breaks.] that is the first stage, concentration, is the attenuation of the mind and its stuff to the contents within it. That's-- To go beyond that, alright, is-- is really almo-- It's (not easy/nice). Many o-- many times you think that there's a depotentiation of the vasanas but I think the experience will point out that it's-- rubber has a habit of coming back to you. (laughter) And those vasanas are twice as powerful as they were before. (AD laughing)

S (very faint): That's true.

AS: You have to exercise them. (AS laughs a bit)

S (faint whisper): Stretch them.

[10¾ second pause]

AD: So-- Now if we-- if we equated Mercury-- I-- he equated Mercury or we said we identified Mercury as this light of nature.

S (very faint): Yeah.

AB: Wasn't there another light he spoke of there, in that section? Remember when he said-- a different [S simultaneously, faint: (That's right.)] one from the natural light?

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

[short pause]

AS: Hm?

S (faint): What?

AD: Well let's follow the clue. Let's follow (the clue). In terms of how we put it.

AS (faint): Well--

[short pause]

S (faint): Hm?

LR: What was your question? What is Mercury?

AD: Yeah.

LR: Which Mercury, the one--

AD: Well, he refers to this--

LR: The Mercurius?

AD: Yeah. Will-- will you reread, I think we-- we got off the point.

AS: Uh-hm. Yeah. [AD simultaneously: Just the (end now).] Actually we didn't finish reading, (we're/or) reading.

AD: Just the end.

S (simultaneously, faint): Uh-hm.

AS: Ok. Says--

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 193, paragraph 389, AS reading]: "He has implanted that light in us that we may see in its light the light of Him Who dwells in inaccessible light, and that we may excel His other creatures…""

AD: Reread, reread. He planted that light in us so that we may see that inaccessible light.

AS: Yeah.

C.G. Jung [CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 193, paragraph 389, AS reading]: "He has implanted that light in us that we may see in its light the light of Him Who dwells in inaccessible light, and that we may excel His other creatures; in this wise we are made like unto Him, that He has given us a spark of His light. Thus the truth is to be sought not in ourselves, but [AS adds: in] the image of God which is within us.""

AD: See, again, image of God I mean is not a picture. Here's a quotation from Alchemical Studies I think. He says--

C.G. Jung [CW 13, Alchemical Studies, "The Spirit Mercurius," p. 250, paragraph 303, AD reading]: "Mercurius, that [AD reads: the] two-faced god, comes as the lumen naturae [AD: natural light]…only to those whose reason strives towards the highest light ever received by man, and who do not trust exclusively to the cognitio vespertina."

AD: I imagine that means the vulgar cognition.

C.G. Jung [CW 13, Alchemical Studies, "The Spirit Mercurius," p. 250, paragraph 303, AD reading]: "For those who are unmindful of this light, [AD: The natural light.] the lumen naturae [AD reads: natural light] turns into a perilous ignis fatuus, and the psychopomp into a diabolical seducer [AD reads: into a perilous psychopomp or into a diabolical seducer]. Lucifer, who could have brought light, becomes the father of lies whose voice in our time, supported by press and radio, revels [AD reads: reveals] in orgies of propaganda and leads untold millions to ruin."

AK: Why-- why is it-- why does he call it two-faced in this [three/few words inaudible] why-- this is the first reference you-- that's been made in all the ways you've put the five of Mercury.

AD (simultaneously): Well, he says here that that light can be rejected or accepted. So it's two-faced in that way. [student assents, very faint] It can be used for dial-- diabolical purposes, alright, or can be used as a clue to follow up to it source. Now, I don't know--

AK (simultaneously, faint): So that, are they likening it to (opinion) in that book that Larry-- it's like a-- is this a transition between two levels and the facing in both directions?

AD: I don't think so, maybe [AK simultaneously, faint: (No?)] this diagram, Anne, might give us a clue. Uh-- We're-- we're on-- we're on to this problem now. Here. There's such an abundance of problems. (bit of laughter) [drawing] If-- if we assume that this is the Sun in Aquarius [diagram], you know, and we-- we place the zodiac here and then the planetary spheres here, and we could put the sublunary sphere within that [diagram], alright? Now, we said that it is this here [diagram] which releases the bodhicitta, alright. In other words, the spark from the soul. So this is the spark-soul over here [diagram]. And this would be the soul itself [diagram], or the term that-- This is also referred to as the Christ [diagram]. [short pause] So then, it seems that if this is the manifested world, twelfth house world [diagram], that between these two realms, the spark, the spark of the soul is projected forth into the universe. And in between, in between the universe and the cosmic soul, Plotinus put Nature [diagram]. So evidently I think what he's saying is something like this, that the light which is coming from the soul is illuminating Nature.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

AD: What do you think Tim?

TS: Seemed like that's-- in that quote he was saying that-- that through tracing-- through releasing the light of nature within myself and pursuing the light of nature to its source, one would come in contact with that spark-soul. It seemed like he was saying that the spark-soul is inserted into Nature, and then there's the medium, Nature-- the light of nature is the medium in which that-- that spark resides. And that if that was-- I thought that's what he meant by the two-faced quality of the light of nature. That [one word inaudible] one awoke in that light of nature, aroused that light of nature, but did not seek to extract from it the bodhicitta, then there would be this intelligence which would be put to the use of the Dragon.

AD: Well, what do you think? I mean I-- I want yous to participate in this because this is no theory, this is-- these are things you're going to have to work out sooner or later, [AK: Is--] probably later.

AK: I-- I'm not sure that I really understand the question, is the question where is this spa-- this spark of soul, this bodhicitta originating? Is that the question?

AD: Again?

AK: Is the question the origination of the bodhicitta? Is that--

AD: Well, that seems to have been pretty clear, no?

AK: Right, it's not in the realm of Nature.

AD (simultaneously): (That/If) the bodhicitta was this light that the soul gives off--

AK: Right.

AD: And that it was an eternal--

AK: Right.

AD: Ok, it had-- it would have the same characteristics like the soul itself.

AK: Yeah.

AD: So it will be eternal. So that bodhicitta, like in that article it was stressed it's always pure, it's immaculate, it has all the virtues and the qualities of the soul, alright. Now, on the one hand this bodhicitta seems to be the image of God and we're trying to get some sort of, you know, image in our mind to work with, well what does this mean, image of God, alright. Is it some kind of little picture that's inside my heart, you know, like you look at a seed and it's got imprinted on it the kind of plant it's going to become. Is that what it's like?

AK: No, I don't think it's an image in a se-- what we already said, it's not an image in the sense of that image, something--

AD: Well, what would it be like then, what would the bodhicitta be like? He says it's the light of nature. Didn't he? He says Mercurius is the light of nature.

AS: Well-- well, I mean that's-- [S, faint: Right, yeah.] now you're saying-- you're equating, you're actually equating the bodhicitta or this image of God with the light of nature.

AD: I'm not equating, [S simultaneously, faint: No.] I thought that they did, they equate.

CDA (simultaneously): Oh, you're equating it with Mercurius.

S: Yeah.

AS: No I didn't mean you. I mean these-- in-- equating [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): I mean, he's doing that.

CDA: He's equating [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] it with Mercurius.

AD: I'm trying to-- I'm trying to remain impartial.

AS: Oh.

S: Yeah.

AD: "Mercurius…"

AS (simultaneously): Oh, well that's what I (a--)

C.G. Jung [CW 13, Alchemical Studies, "The Spirit Mercurius," p. 250, paragraph 303, AD reading]: "Mercurius, that [AD reads: the] two-faced god, comes as the lumen naturae [AD reads: the light of nature], the Servator and [AD adds: the] Salvator, [AD: I don't know what that means.] only to those whose reason strives towards the highest light ever received by man, and who do not trust exclusively to the cognitio vespertina [AD reads: to empirical cognition]. For those who are unmindful of this light, the lumen naturae [AD reads: light of nature] turns into a perilous ignis fatuus, [AD, faint: I don't know.] [S, very faint whisper: I don't know.] and the psychopomp into a diabolical seducer. Lucifer, who could have brought light, becomes the father of lies whose voice in our time, supported by press and radio…"

AS: (Yeah/Right). I don't quite-- I mean that one-- I don't know why he puts it in quite so negative terms. If we take the analogy of Nature, seems you would say on the one hand Nature is an emanation from the soul. On the other hand though Nature's task is to manifest the sensible world, and in manifesting it it's caught up in that sensible world which it manifests. So if we equate Nature with Mercurius, I'm just doing cosmically first, that you would say that that Mercurius or the light of nature is embodied in the cosmos that it manifests. And that's one face. The other face though is it is a spark or an emanation from the soul. So inso-- it doesn't-- I don't see the-- at least there the evil connotation in-- in the sense that that's its job as it were is to manifest a cosmos. [S, very faint: Yeah.] Just looking at it in terms of Nature. I don't know if I made that clear.

[short pause]

AD: Yeah you made it clear.

AS: Yeah ok great.

AD: But--

S: Uh-hm.

AS (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

AD: But why-- why can't you see both aspects to it if you apply it specifically to man?

AS: Yeah. Well I was just doing it--

AD: I mean ignoring-- ignoring that it produces the sensible world, the corporeal world.

AS (simultaneously): Uh-hm.

AD: If it produces man-- in other words, if this Mercurial light produces man, organizes the bhutas so that it becomes a body and then operates through that body, isn't it that very light (that/it) could turn in either direction?

AS: Yeah that's what I was saying. That once it's done that then it can ha-- it can-- produces the body, now it's either immersed in the body and concerned with the body and all its affects or it can turn around and recognize itself as an offspring of the soul. [student assents, very faint] Now I don't know if those are the two ways that-- that [S simultaneously, faint: Is (this/it)--] you're speaking of.

S: Is this light and the Nature also within both? Are they both constituted of the same reason-principles or, if Nature's constituted of a certain amount of reason-principles, does that light to illumine it have to contain within it the same reason-principles?

AD: I-- what-- try again.

S: You say Nature's constituted of particular reason-principles. The light that's (illumining), you said it (both illumines--)

AD: The light that's what?

S: (You said) a light is illumining Nature, a light given off by the soul is illumining that Nature. Does that light have to contain coordinate [one/two words inaudible] or the same reason-principles, is it constituted of the same reason-principles as that Nature that it's (illumining)?

[short pause]

AS: I think-- seems the question more here is what is that Nature other than that light given off by the soul.

S (faint): That's my-- yes.

AS: I mean you're saying the light illumines Nature. But what is Nature other than that light which is-- what is Nature other than the light given off by the soul?

S (faint): Yeah, that's my question.

AS: Then you-- seems like-- [S simultaneously, faint: (There isn't) a distinction, right.] That is it, that is what you're speaking of when it's--

S (faint): So there-- so there isn't a distinction then between the nature of the light [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: Well, let's not be premature, let's just go along.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: (You--)

AS (simultaneously): I mean that's a question though.

AD: Yeah, you want to repeat that?

AS: I mean, the question is is-- what is there-- is there something of-- is there something in what we call Nature which is other than this light of the soul? Is there a distinction or is-- is Nature that very light or emanation of the soul. Or is there something more to what we call Nature than the light, and you want to distinguish between the light of the soul which is present in Nature and Nature itself.

S (faint): Yeah.

AS: Because see-- I'm just using the analogy from Plotinus. There's a light given off. But to constitute what he calls the animate there's also the matter, something in-- In other words, there's something there. If you can see that there's something in the twelfth house from a different point of view, looking at this diagram in a dis-- different perspective, [S, faint: He mentioned the bhutas.] there is say the bhutas or even the ether, the fifth bhuta. Now, is Nature just the spark from the soul or is it that spark as already-- as conjoined with this ether.

AD: What were the-- what were the [couple inaudible AS words simultaneous with AD] qualities of Nature in regard to knowing?

AS: In regard to--

AD: To knowing.

AS: Knowing.

JC/S(?): He does speak of [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): What kind of knowing did it possess?

AB: Unconscious.

AS (simultaneously): He says it's below the imagination even.

AD: Even below sensation?

AS: Below imagination or sensation.

AD: Below sensation?

CDA: How could it--

AS: In a way it's un-- he s-- yeah. Not that it-- I mean--

CDA: [three words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Not that it doesn't contemplate, it's a funny--

AD: Go on. It contemplates. [AS simultaneously: Well, he says it contemplates.] It contemplates the reason-principles which are above it or the cosmic soul. Right? [10¼ second pause while drawing] Remember we said that all these powers which belong to the soul are embodied in the Sun [diagram], alright. [AS assents, faint] They're all embodied by the Sun. Now, this-- this part of the soul, the lowest grade or power of the soul projects this light, which, let's call it the bodhicitta.

AS: Right. But that--

AD (simultaneously): So that in the bodhicitta would be all the powers of the soul, alright.

AS: As well as-- ok, maybe you-- I would say as well as all of the Divine-- If you say the soul contains within itself the whole of the Intelligible Cosmos, that light too will contain an image of that Intelligible Cosmos, it is--

AD (simultaneously): This light here [diagram].

S (faint): Yeah.

AS (simultaneously): The light of the bodhicitta.

AD (simultaneously): Alright. So then inside of this here [drawing/writing] would be the Intelligible World [diagram]. Ok?

AS (faint): [couple words inaudible] Yeah.

AD: Now, if we do the same thing, if we think of Nature we say that-- we put Nature here [diagram] and we say Nature contemplates [drawing] [AS assents] the soul. And it produces the sensible world, the sensible world precipitates out of its contemplation, drops-- [AS assents, faint] And this is a knowledge which is less than sensation, it's like the knowledge that a person has in dream or sleep. It's below sensation, it's below understanding. Well, then there would seem to be a difference between the light which we're calling Nature, alright, and the light which we're calling bodhicitta. Because the bodhicitta would-- [AS: Supposed to be--] would be incorporating the gnostic faculties.

AS: Seems that way, huh?

JC: Also too because the light of nature suppo-- I mean, let's say Nature is animating all these organisms, animals included, and bodhicitta is supposedly something peculiar to man. It's a light that only the man-- it's present [student assents] in man.

AS: Right. But that-- I think that is kind of-- wouldn't you say that is the distinction, if the Nature principle is animating these bodies and it's in a way sub-- below conscious level. And what you're calling this principle in man is really a conscious principle then.

AD: So if put all the-- we put the reason-principles here [diagram], [drawing] you remember, we had them down as twelve reason-principles. We say these are the reason-principles which the soul with its seven powers, alright, is contemplating these here and producing-- producing the light of nature. Go ahead, (please).

RG (simultaneously, faint): Well I-- I don't understand what this knowing that you're describing as reasoning [AD simultaneously: The knowing--] that's peculiar-- of Nature.

AD (faint): (Um--)

AB: Isn't that what-- Avery, where's that [AD simultaneously: III.8.] part where he says [AS simultaneously: Yeah, in the (Böhme/poem).] Nature speaks, Nature speaks, what could she say?

AD: Yeah, turn to that, III.8.

AS (simultaneously): Well--

RG (faint): III.8? Supposed (to be) [couple words inaudible]

TS (simultaneously): Page 241.

RG: 241?

S (faint): Yeah.

AS: But there's-- but there's also the one in IV.4.13 where he says specifically that Nature is the last of the Intelligibles with which or even a little before the series ends, and that the knowing of Nature is even below imagination. Says it's like an impress of a seal. Whatever it receives it passes on. And its-- its knowledge is below that of imagination. It doesn't even have the power of imagination.

AD (simultaneously): Well, we just have to try to understand this.

RG (faint): I don't understand.

AS: I know, that's-- that's just-- that is--

RG (faint): I know, he makes [one word inaudible] but I don't know what it means.

LR (simultaneously): See that sounds-- that's f-- it seems like we're talking about two-- two-- two descriptions of Nature. That's-- what you just said, Avery, sounds a lot like the Dragon or that thing that Böhme was talking about, it doesn't have its own-- it uses man's organs. [S, faint: Yeah.] You know, it fabricates these organs and has experience through them.

RG: Yes.

S: (Uh-uh.)

LR: That sounds-- that sounds more like the description of Nature, of having this threshold of consciousness below--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah but, if you apply that to all the planetary spheres then you wouldn't be able to restrict it to the soul of a planet.

LR: No, no, I don't want to restrict it to one-- to one planet. I'm just saying [someone drawing] that doesn't sound like the same description [RG simultaneously: Yeah.] of Nature as that light projected from the World-Soul.

AB: No but--

RG: Or-- or the description in III.8.

AB: But he-- when he speaks of it as a life and an energy, it-- why can't you also say that it doesn't know [RG simultaneously: How do you s-- well--] in the way-- technical way we use "know".

RG: I don't understand how it can contemplate the principle of Soul and not also be aware of its contemplation.

AB: It doesn't have [RG simultaneously: It doesn't make sense to me.] this conscious reflective knowledge of what it's doing, it's silent--

RG (simultaneously): Well who says--

JC: Does he specifically say that Nature contemplates Soul?

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: Yeah.

RG: Yeah.

S: And he--

RG: And you-- I still-- I've never understood how you could speak of that contemplation as not conscious of what it's contemplating. [student assents, very faint] The whole idea of--

AD: If it was-- if you were conscious of what you were contemplating you wouldn't be contemplating.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

RG: Yeah but ok but then-- but that's true of any principle and-- I mean that-- then you're making a criterion for any contemplation up [AD simultaneously: Ok, ok.] (to/through)-- up to the level of Intellect.

AS/S(?): Yeah.

AD: Good.

RG: So that's not a good criterion.

AD: No, that's [AS simultaneously: No but that's the point.] a good criterion because now that gives you a clue.

RG: But-- but then you wouldn't speak of it as below-- that wouldn't be good enough criterion to speak of it as below imagination if it can't beco-- it isn't also aware of what it's contemplating. You certainly wouldn't speak of any other contemplation from Nature above-- above Nature as below the imagination just [AS simultaneously: No but--] because it could-- it-- it was [few words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): But turn it around. Couldn't you say then that contemplation or the Intellectual-Principle in a sense extends all the way down even to Nature. That seems-- I mean if you follow the logical consequence. [RG, faint: Yeah well--] You're saying that you don't need to have these faculties, imagination and so on, in order for there to be a contemplation.

RG: No, that's--

AS: The presence of-- the presence of Intellectual-Princ-- There are facul--

RG (simultaneously): And what do you mean it's lower than imagination?

AS: Well, what do you mean by saying imagination is lower than reason or reason is lower than intellection? Isn't it? I mean you'd put a-- you'd say that, it's distinct.

RG: I think what-- I think that--

AS (simultaneously): You can have reasoning without the imagination. You could [RG assents] have intellection without reason.

RG: And you could have contemplation without all of those.

AS: Right.

RG: So why lower?

AS: That was--

RG: Why not higher?

AS: Lower-- but then--

RG (simultaneously): Why not on the same level, I mean--

AS: Lower just means that without-- that it operates without any imagination.

RG (faint): (That usually--) I don't like (the use) [AB simultaneously, faint: He--] [student assents, faint] of the word 'lower'.

S (simultaneously, very faint): If I (could--)

AB: He's-- Plotinus says that when we speak of the Nature as understanding or perceiving, then it's really an inaccurate use and it's applying a word to sleep from the waking-- you know, the waking realm. It's more like a silent brooding, not an imagining.

RG: Yeah. Right, ok, but-- That's going to solve your problem.

AD: No, no, don't-- don't run away from it, keep--

RG (simultaneously, faint): I'm not running, I'm looking for a (book).

LR: But what-- what can it tell us if we need-- (laughter)

S: Here Richard. (RG laughing)

S: More? Yeah.

LR (simultaneously): What can it tell us if we needed Plotinus to say that Nature-- that Nature speaks and says it's all vision, and creates vision by the vision-seeing faculty within it.

AD: Well why don't you tell us what you think he says, which would be more to the point. What is he saying now?

[9½ second pause]

LR: I don't know. It's hard for me.

RG: I mean, yeah. I mean--

LR: See-- you know, he says-- well I'll just read this passage. "It would have been more becoming…" Um-- "…whatso co--" This is Nature speaking.

Plotinus [III.8.4, LR reading]: ""…whatsoever comes into being is my vision, seen in my silence, the vision that belongs to my character who, sprung from vision, am vision-loving and create vision by the vision-seeing faculty within me. …I draw nothing: I gaze and the figures of the material world take being as if they fell from my contemplation. As with my Mother [the All-Soul (LR reads: Soul)] and the Beings that begot me so it is with me: they are born of a Contemplation and my birth is from them, not by their Act but by their Being; they are the loftier Reason-Principles, [LR adds: and] they contemplate themselves and I am born.""

AS: Well, what's the--

LR (simultaneously): Not that that speaks to what level the consciousness of Nature is on. It's just that that kind of description makes it difficult for me to see Nature's consciousness as below the threshold of sensation.

AS: Well another--

AD: Could we put it like this? Does the understanding that Nature have, is it something like human beings have? Is it something above or below what human beings have? In other words, does Nature operate with sensation, opinion--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1982 0320b Ends; Side 2 Begins)

LR: Weaker than what though Alan?

RG (simultaneously): Than what? Weaker than-- than human reasoning?

S: It's so weak you're leaving.

RG: I don't-- [couple inaudible LR words simultaneous with RG] I don't understand that.

AB: Read-- read that tractate.

LR (simultaneously): The power of Nature is what made [couple words inaudible]

RG (simultaneously): It doesn't-- it doesn't need any of the other faculties [AB simultaneously: Well read that-- read that--] to know anything 'cause it possesses them [student assents, faint] intrinsically, that doesn't sound weak to me.

TS: It's weaker than the soul's contemplation of the Intellectual-Principle, [LR: Sure.] [S: But--] which the-- the soul carries with itself all the way down to the Sun in Aquarius, with Nature being that who-- divorced from that Intellectual-Principle it is only in itself. I mean self-contemplation means that that creative imagination. But it's not connected back up I don't think.

RG: It isn't, Nature isn't-- isn't the Being within the Intellectual-Principle?

AB: But, [AD, faint: (Listen.)] if you do--

AS (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]

AB: If we did distinguish this light of the bodhicitta from the light or intelligence of Nature, then Tim is saying you-- within us we could trace ourselves back above Nature. So, that would-- it is a higher intuition than that that-- that we have from the bodhicitta which is transmitted maybe through Nature.

RG: Yes and to explain it that way then you would explain it as the soul contemplates the Intellectual-Principle, that's the realm where-- where it has a higher knowledge. [AS simultaneously: Yeah, that's right.] But to speak of it in terms of normal human [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): You remember, you remember Herbie was [AS simultaneously: It's like a reflex.] talking Sunday, he says that in one of the classes they discussed the nature of innate knowledge. Says this vulture is flying around and knows there's a dead body on the other [AS assents] side of the mountain. [AS assents] And so they well-- you know, how do you know that? [few inaudible LR words simultaneous with AD] Well, you know, it says so in the book. [S: Yeah.] But there's some truth in that. I mean it seems that many-- not-- many animals possess a knowledge that we don't understand, like an ant will know that there's something over there to eat and will just directly go there, it has no means of knowing it that we can see. It doesn't reason about it, it doesn't, you know, have any sense-- sense-perception of it. And yet it goes directly to that source of food. You know, if you put an obstacle in its way, then it can't reason, it keeps bumping up against that obstacle, alright. [RG assents, faint] But-- then that would mean that the ant or whatever the creature is is operating with some kind of innate knowledge which is not in the realm of sensation, not in the realm of opinion, not in the realm of reason. [LR assents] Well then what kind of knowledge is it?

LR: It seems like what you're speaking of there is the innate knowledge coming down through the spheres.

AD: What do you mean coming down?

LR: Alright.

AS (simultaneously): No, it's there.

JfL (simultaneously): But look, how about if we turn to--

AS (simultaneously): It's like it's below-- it's the subst-- it's [LR/S(?) simultaneously: (Won't go far.)] like the magnetic direct perceiver, it's the [LR simultaneously: Wait, wait.] substratum-- the unitary--

RG (simultaneously): Yeah fine, so say it's the-- [AB simultaneously: Is that another perceiver?] say it's the manifestation of the principle of Nature. I mean in the en-- in-- in the entity, that-- that doesn't-- that doesn't explain what Nature's contemplation is like.

AD (simultaneously): But-- but it's no kind of knowledge-- it's no kind of knowledge that we as human beings could deal with.

LR: It's a knowledge--

RG (simultaneously): But that's not dealing with the knowledge of Nature as a principle but only [student assents, faint] with one of the manif--

AD (simultaneously): Well, well--

AS: No, but why say that?

AD (simultaneously): Look, don't worry about the text, let's just talk. Then what kind of knowledge is this?

DB: A harmonious interaction of habit.

AD: No, no.

S (faint): No.

AD: Oh no.

LR: That's the knowledge--

AD (simultaneously): Habit is going to be the result of that knowledge.

AS: Yeah.

LR: That's the knowledge that one works with insofar as the Dragon is the traces of all the-- all the activities and--

AS (simultaneously): No, I don't think so, [AD simultaneously: (Good.)] I think it's the wisdom that built--

LR (simultaneously): That's what he means by instinct.

S (very faint): (Oh) no.

AS (simultaneously): No I think it's the wisdom that built the cosmos.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

LR (simultaneously): That's just-- well that's what I'm saying.

AS (simultaneously): It's the wisdom of the-- it's the co-- wisdom of the cosmic circuit that's built. And there--

LR (simultaneously): Ok, that's built-- it's the body.

AS (simultaneously): Well wait, wait. No but wait, let me just finish. And as it built it, and within it is the sensibly manifested cosmos, it is still-- it is the very underlie, the interconnecting medium as it were of all of the whole cosmos. It's like below the threshold of the manifested world is that, so to speak, unconscious force field or whatever you want to call it that has--

LR: That's actually built into the body.

AS: Projected it.

TS (simultaneously): There's not the traces in the body I don't think, I think the-- the intelligence of life just in itself that is the cosmos?

LR: Well that's what--

TS (simultaneously): Yeah, well that-- but that's not the traces left of that life system in the body.

AS: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

TS (simultaneously): But is a certain creative life [AS simultaneously: (couple words inaudible) within it.] intelligence in the imagination of the cosmos per se.

AS: Yeah.

LR: Traces aren't to have negative traces or [AS simultaneously: No.] [one word inaudible] traces, [TS simultaneously: No, but they're--] I mean it is also the intelligence of the body.

AS: Yeah and those traces are within it.

LR (simultaneously): You know, when he speaks of the brain as a physical representation of all those-- [AS assents] of all that-- those substances in that quotation? That seems to be the kind of intelligence that Nature has in there. That the eagle knows there-- or that the raven knows that there's carrion on the other side of the mountain. And it's actually built into the substance, the physical substance of the brain.

DB: But also that would im-- but also wouldn't you say that whatever level we're discussing it, it implies-- it implies a continuity with the whole rest of the-- the planet, for example. Like, I mean, there's a functioning of these traces within the raven, ok, and yet there's this dead whatever on the other side of the mountain. So, I mean in order for it to know that, it has to be connected with the totality of the system within which it knows that, ok, so I mean we're dealing with the-- (it--)

LR (simultaneously): Large principles.

DB: Yeah. I mean it's--

AD: Wait. If I follow you Dave, you're saying here's a creature, alright, a raven, a jackal, whatever. He knows there's something over there and we don't know how he knows and we kn-- all experimentation and say well there's-- there's certainly no human knowing as we understand it.

DB (faint): Right.

AD: You're saying that this creature, the Dragon is living through this creature, alright, and the Dragon is also living through that other creature.

DB: Right.

AD: Therefore creature A knows or has an innate knowledge about that creature B which could be its dinner, alright, [DB: Yeah.] because the Dragon has this knowledge, "I exist here as a chicken and I exist over here as a fox. [students assent] And I really can-- I really gotta bring them together," (bit of laughter) ok.

DB: Right. So is--

AD: Now, if that's the kind of innate knowledge I think the Tibetans were referring to which is a-- is a kind of knowledge. But, is it in any one of these realms that we speak about as human--

DB: No.

AD: Then what kind of knowledge is it?

LR: Ok, so it doesn't belong to the human cog--

AD: It doesn't belong--

LR (simultaneously): --cognitional-- no.

AD (simultaneously): It's not properly speaking human knowledge of any sort.

LR: No.

RG/S(?): That's right.

LR: Right. (But the--)

AD (simultaneously): But it does exist.

RG (faint): Uh-hm.

LR: Yes.

AD: And this is the kind of knowledge that Nature has?

AS: Yeah.

RG (simultaneously): It's na-- no.

AS: Why not?

MB (faint): But wouldn't you have--

RG (simultaneously): I don't-- I don't see why you make that conclusion.

AS (simultaneously): Wait, but--

LR: Oh I see what you're calling it.

AS (simultaneously): What-- what knowledge is it though?

LR (simultaneously): Dickie's saying-- by saying that, Dickie's saying you can't equate man's knowledge of Nature with Nature's as a principle's own knowledge. In other words, [AS: Oh.] Dickie's saying what [AS simultaneously: I don't know if (that/I)--] we know of Nature is below the fa-- the gnostic faculties, it's sub-sensational, it has this instinctual quality, but that's not to say that Nature as a principle has that knowledge as its own--

AS (simultaneously): No, that's not a-- [S: Of course.] that's not-- I don't think that was the point though, Richard. I-- that isn't-- I don't think that's the point.

LR (simultaneously): (It ain't) the point. (bit of laughter)

AS: No but that wasn't the--

RG: You're-- why? Well, the-- you were trying to discuss what kind of knowledge Nature has.

AS (simultaneously): Agreed that it's not human knowledge and so we don't know of it but--

AD (simultaneously with RG and AS): Well, would it be knowledge that it belo-- would it be knowledge that belongs to the wakeful state?

RG: Whose knowledge? The insect's knowledge?

AD: Yeah. This knowledge that we said that the-- the Dragon has, here's-- here's the chicken, here's the fox and I'm going to tell the fox "There's the chicken, go ahead," (bit of laughter) alright. Now, would we say that that kind of knowledge belongs to wakeful consciousness?

S: No.

RG: Not as we understand it.

AD (simultaneously): So it seems to be like more at the level of sleep consciousness.

S (faint): You mean dream.

AD: I mean dream, yeah, dream would be better. It's like a dream kind of knowledge. You know like when you're having a dream and you know that you know this person in the dream but when you wake up can't remember or you-- you don't know him anymore.

RG: Uh-hm.

AD: But in the dream there was this tremendous familiarity with him. Sure, it's part of you.

RG (faint): Uh-hm.

AD: Alright? So there's this tremendous familiarity. There's an innate knowledge, "I know this here," alright. [RG assents, faint] But, that's the kind of knowledge that the Nature has?

RG: I-- I don't-- I don't know. I mean I've nev-- I don't know what kind of knowledge Nature has but I think it's premature to-- to claim that what we observe of-- of animals is the kind of knowledge that Nature has. It's only the kind of knowledge that we observe its manifestations to have but not itself.

AD (simultaneously): Well yes, we-- all we can--

AS (simultaneously): Sure.

AD: Yeah we know that they're only manifestations but aren't they leading us into the direction that the kind of knowledge that Nature is working with is a dream kind of knowledge. That doesn't make it ineffectual. Well then, [RG: I don't know.] [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] Dickie, you tell me.

RG/S(?): (I) don't know, I don't know.

AD (simultaneously): You tell me. [S, faint: Uh-hm.] You think the knowledge that Nature has is a conscious wakefulness? A deliberation kind of knowledge?

RG: No, I don't think it has-- I don't think it's a comparable kind of knowledge to human knowledge, no. I wouldn't say that but if-- but if it is a principle and has an existence in the realm of Being, I don't see why we can't afford it a similar-- a--

AD (simultaneously): Well, it is the last, you know, the last.

RG (simultaneously): Granted it's the last but--

AD (simultaneously): It's where the Ideas are utterly, you know, remote from one another. There's isn't that concentration of all the Ideas like there is in the Nous. Here they're li-- they're like [student assents, faint] spread out in this imaginal essence.

RG: Ok. Then, could you just explain this paragraph, I'll keep quiet. So I mean just--

AD (simultaneously, faint): Yeah, please.

Plotinus [III.8.4, RG reading]: "For the Vision on which Nature broods, inactive, is a self-intuition, a spectacle laid before it by virtue of its unaccompanied self-concentration and by the fact that in itself it belongs to the order of intuition."

AD: Do-- do you remember ever getting very bright ideas when you were like in a semi-wakeful state? Like you weren't awake and you weren't asleep.

RG (faint): Go ahead.

AD: Translate it that way, use that for a background.

LR: See to-- I think it's kind of safe to say it aligns more to the dream state. Because that's not either putting it down or wri-- I mean, that's not a-- an evaluative statement to say that the dream substance is more the substance of Nature's consciousness. And it-- and in that-- in saying that it can permutate-- it can permeate-- can permeate up through the wakeful state or it can-- Do you know what I mean Dickie?

S: (Mm/Hm).

LR: I mean it--

S (faint): Yeah.

RG: Yeah I know.

S (faint): Well--

LDS: But I want to ask, why is it a problem to see that--

AD (simultaneously): Wait, first let's see if Dickie-- [S, very faint: Yeah.] if that paragraph can be explained to Dickie the way we just-- In that kind of a state, you know, a half awake and half asleep, which many of us have the experience, there's (some/self) intuition going on. [student assents, very faint] There's an intuiting process operative. [student assents, very faint] But intuition here is not like one of the gnostic functions.

[short pause]

AH (faint): I don't--

RG: It's not like one of the gnostic--

AD (simultaneously): Read it again, read again.

RG: Ok.

AD: No, this is going to be a very obscure, very difficult problem, I've already recognized that, because I've been half awake and half asleep. (bit of laughter) Read again.

RG: Um-- Well, ok, I just-- let me read a couple of sentences before that just to--

AD: Sure.

Plotinus [III.8.4, RG reading]: "Now what does this tell us [RG adds: about Nature]?

"It tells: that what we know as Nature is a Soul, offspring of a yet earlier Soul of more powerful life; that it possesses, therefore, in its repose, a vision within itself; that it has no tendency upward nor even downward but is at peace, steadfast, in its own Essence; that, in this immutability accompanied by what may be called Self-Consciousness, it possesses -- within the measure of its possibility -- a knowledge of the realm of subsequent things perceived in virtue of that understanding and consciousness; and, achieving thus a resplendent and delicious spectacle, has no further aim. …

"For the Vision on which Nature broods, inactive, is a self-intuition, a spectacle laid before it by virtue of its unaccompanied self-concentration and by the fact that in itself it belongs to the order of intuition."

TS: You skipped an interesting paragraph there.

RG: Well, we read that one.

CDA: Which tractate is that?

AS: III.8.3.

S (simultaneously): III.8.4.

TS (faint): Well that's--

RG: Yeah, we read-- we've [AS simultaneously: 4.] read the other one, the middle part.

S (very faint): It's (ok).

AD: Don't you get the feeling that that's like the state of reverie that an artist very often experiences where none of his gnostic functions are really operative, alright. [RG simultaneously: Sure.] Yet, we can't say that he's-- he's not there or unaware, completely unaware. He is aware. I mean we're not denying that. Nature has some kind of awareness.

RG: And it-- ok, and in that concentrated state of an artist for example, isn't he closer to the essences and ideas than-- than he would be using other gnostic faculties for example?

LR: Yeah but he did say that--

AD (simultaneously): That's-- that's difficult, first of all, because I will be presupposing the accurate understanding of what the gnostic functions are when we say dianoia, alright.

RG (simultaneously): Yeah.

AD: Because if-- [RG simultaneously: But--] if you think of the rationalizing that's going on we know that that's not dianoia.

RG: Ok so let's-- alright, so it-- so-- so at least it's closer to the higher aspect of dianoia.

AD: Uh-huh.

RG: And possibly to the-- the idea of-- of even higher than that when there's a-- a stream of intuition directed towards those essence without any intermediary thinking.

LR: But we did say the imagination operates in the taijasa state, that is its state. And insofar as that it-- that would also be the state of Nature, the reason-principles could be assimilated-- you know, it's very close in substance. And that way it's closer to the reason-principle.

MB (faint): Anthony, if you say that the-- the consciousness of Nature is like a dreamlike consciousness, then what would be the-- the waking (processing) from a cosmic-- a more natural cosmic process? What's the correspondence that one would be?

[9 second pause]

AD: Let me try to work with this one first and then we go there. Alright?

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: What-- if we go back to this, uh-- Do you remember, I think it was Goethe who made the remark if I-- I'm mistaken, says that the Greeks were the first to break out of the dreamlike state of consciousness and become fully aware, the way we understand awareness today, that is, with the precision and the articulation that our wake-- wakeful consciousness operates with. So, if you throw yourself back into that, alright, if we-- if we go-- try to imagine that prior to those-- the classical Greeks, that people participated in that kind of consciousness, it will be a sort of mythological consciousness. Or let's say a consciousness that, if we throw our mind out of focus now, alright, then instead of dealing-- instead of dealing with a-- an object which has been deified, we deal with a matrix of possibilities from which the object can arise. Now if you try to experience that, what kind of awareness would it be? Wouldn't it be close to that-- what we spoke about as a reverie? No, maybe reverie might be wrong. A brown study or anything like that.

S (faint): Hm.

RC (faint): One really excellent example of that kind of thing, Salk, the fellow that came up with the polio vaccine. He said he was so preoccupied with that, and it was always in his mind, it finally precipitated one night (and he) (has/had) a dream in which he actually felt himself to be (subjected the sort of) germ that causes the polio. And in that he had like the (instinctive/distinctive) awareness of forces within this cosmos around him which were hostile and beneficent.

AD: Were hostile?

RC (faint): Were either hostile or beneficent to the state of being that he was in. And, in the dream his chemist's mind was accompanying him, it was present. And with that faculty he was able to identify the chemical composition of the hostile elements. And then when he came out of that he had his formula for this vaccine.

CDA: Hm.

S: Yeah.

AD: What do you think of that?

CDA: (Hm.) (laughter, student words) What do you think [RG simultaneously: I mean--] about that?

AD: It's certainly not a human kind of consciousness at all, right?

RG: It's no different than--

AD (simultaneously): It seems to be something--

AS (simultaneously): It sounds like Tibetan. (AS laughs a bit)

AD: We don't have to say below or above-- [S simultaneously: Woodstock.] there's no need for that kind of evaluation but there's need to try to pinpoint what you-- what Plotinus is speaking about as what Na-- how Nature operates, what kind of understanding she has.

RG: But it is a real being and it is a soul.

AD: Oh. Nobody said-- it's not soul, it's not soul.

RG: He says it is a s--

AD: It's not soul.

RG (simultaneously): It is a soul.

AD: He makes it very clear in twenty other passages that it's the lowest phase of the soul and not soul properly.

RG: I agree it's not soul proper. It's still a soul.

JC: He even said it's not a real being.

RG: And then other places he does.

DB/S(?) (faint): (Right.)

MB (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: But he is trying to give it some kind of a being, true. alright. So we have to immerse ourself in that kind of understanding that Nature has, alright. And the whole point here is evidently this is the way the alchemists must have been working, they must have immersed themselves in that kind of understanding, or let's say in that mode of being.

AS: I have another-- could I ask a question on those lines?

AD (simultaneously, faint): [few words inaudible]

AS: When you were reading the things from Evola, we were reading the-- the quotes from Evola on this biotic force and the way at certain times of crisis for example the whole ego, will, understanding and everything is just pushed out of the way and this, you know, overwhelming power or force comes up. And for a minute you might be thrown into a state of utter fear or utter complete transfixity. That-- it seems like that might be a state that's similar to what they're speaking about as a state of Nature. There's no intellectual understanding of something, there's no rational or sensitive, it's just this-- you know, like a total state that's taken over, this biotic force takes over. And, if we equate that biotic force in its essence with Nature in some way, then it's like for a minute we're submerged into that realm of Nature, of Nature-consciousness where there's no particular sensation or thinking or whatever.

S (faint): Ok now that--

AS: I'm just asking, is-- would that be--

AD (faint): No, I-- I don't see it that way.

AS: Ok, that's fine.

AD: I don't see it that way. I know what you're speaking of but I don't see it at all as going into that state of Nature.

AS: Ok, that's what I was asking.

AD (simultaneously): It's actually a paralysis that you're speaking about.

AS: Right. Where that biotic-- where that force takes over. That's what I was asking. 'Cause there was some question of equating-- whether you would equate that Nature principle with the-- with the biotic force or the power that he's speaking of in Evola.

AD (simultaneously): You see, the-- the thing that we're aiming at, and we'll call it quits now, but the thing that I think we're aiming at is something like this. We're trying to distinguish or bring about some comparison between like what we call the bodhicitta, alright, which is a certain mode of being which is different from the mode of being that Nature has.

AS: Right, that's--

AD: Because the bodhicitta has to be inserted into that Nature.

AS: Right but that's-- yeah. I think that's why I was trying to tie the relation in there. Because Nature seems to be in one way, is the force that is running our life. Now the bodhicitta or the spark of the soul is going to be inserted into this life, into this animated vehicle which the cosmos has produced. Now that vehicle has a life of its own which is in a lot of ways opposed to the bodhicitta. Ok, we spoke about two streams. [student assents, very faint] And in a large way its life, the life of the vehicle, is-- is opposed or is contrasted to the spark of bodhicitta, what the bodhicitta wants to accomplish. Ok?

LR: Do you think they're like [AS simultaneously: Well--] those two horses in [one word inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): No. I wasn't done.

AD: Well--

AS: But I was just saying, if-- is it po-- if you say that it's-- well, that would be intere-- [short pause] Ok I'm sorry but I lost (most of it).

AD: Go ahead.

AB: Isn't the alchemical work, once you get into that realm of Nature, to separate out, you know, the light that's in Nature from the bodhicitta which is immersed in it or shining through it?

AD (faint): (Both./Well--)

AB: Both?

AD: You're speaking about separation, yeah.

AB: Yeah, I mean that's what they're trying to do is separate out those two things from each other.

S: [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): I think that's what we're trying to do. (bit of laughter)

AB: Ok.

JfL: Is the Dragon and the Nature the same the way we talking about it?

AD: Well, wouldn't you have the Nature so to speak spread over all those planetary spheres or would you limit it just to a Dragon?

JfL: I don't-- I really don't even know why Nature's one of the--

AD (simultaneously): If-- if you-- I'm sorry?

JfL: I'm not even sure why Nature is limited only to the twelfth house.

AD: Well where else would you put it?

JfL: Well I'm not sure why it's not part of the universal manifestation or something more coming from the Universal Soul.

AS: That's right, that's exactly where we're putting it, saying it is the emanation from the Universal Soul, from the cosmic soul.

JfL: No, I was thinking of it--

AS: Oh, the third house.

JfL: Yeah.

AS: Third quadrant [diagram].

S (very faint): I did too.

JfL: Or I-- I didn't know, I mean I didn't like-- Nature and the Dragon, I don't know, I'm still confused.

AD: I'm sorry?

JfL: I'm still confused about it.

AD: About Nature and the Dragon?

JfL: Yeah.

AD: Well that's alright, we're confused too.

JfL: You're saying that the Dragon is sort of the localized [AS simultaneously: Within Nature.] aspect of that that-- that we experience here or anybody would or any entity is participating in and how does that-- how does that so--

AD (simultaneously): Well, if you put-- if you put the eight planets there or seven planets, alright, put them on that circle [diagram]. Imagine the planets moving all around, alright? So that each planet in its own sphere is moving around. And each planet has around itself what we just called the Dragon of some kind or another, or a soul peculiar to that planet. Would there be any part of that sphere, so to speak, that wouldn't have some of these attributes? In other words, it's almost like you-- the broom is sweeping the entirety of all the spheres. Just look at the diagram and you see [AS assents] as all the planets are moving and they're taking with them their soul, alright, then what's to prevent a whole sphere from being filled with the Dragons? So that that whole sphere is contaminated with these life forms or vestiges of life.

AS: Yeah.

AD: So then that would mean that the entirety of the sphere is filled with these forms of life, that aspects that are made within-- in certain planets will produce certain forms of life and other aspects other forms of life.

AS: Right. And isn't that production the production of Nature that o-- that occurs spontaneously as it were, it-- it occurs by contemplation, what-- [AD, faint: Yeah.] what he calls a contemplation.

AD: Uh-huh.

AS: And that that Na-- Nature is what's manifesting all these life forms in these-- in all of the spheres, in all the planetary spheres, for one thing. I mean is that right to the--

AD: Yeah. Because I want-- I want it to come out.

S: Right.

DB (simultaneously): Is it-- is it possible that you can make a distinction between [S: Well that's--] contemplation of the Ideas, or the effect of that contemplation in terms of an actualized system of heavenly-- you know, the planetary spheres, the-- yet the intelligence which accompanies that actualization as being distinct from the intelligence of the reason-principles which are contemplated initially would be what he's referring to here as-- as the knowledge that Nature functions with.

AD: I don't know if I understand you but there's contemplation at all levels.

DB: Uh-hm.

AD: The Nous contemplates the One. Soul contemplates the Nous. Nature contemplates the Soul.

DB: Yes.

AD: There's contemplation at all levels.

DB: Right. Now the Nature in contemplating the Soul generates the apparent universe.

AD: Yeah.

DB: Ok? Now it-- would it-- when we speak of the knowledge that Nature operates with, isn't that the knowledge that that apparent universe has in itself, that in contemplating the Soul, Nature generates the-- the intelligence or the vitality, back to the same thing, which accompanies that generation would be the understanding or the knowledge that Nature has.

AD: I'm sorry, I lost the last step.

DB: The under-- the intelligence or the vitality which accompanies the generated world would be the knowledge--

AD (simultaneously): Nature's contemplation?

DB: Right, would-- [AD simultaneously: Yeah. Yeah but--] would be the knowledge that Nature [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, we're not disagreeing there. That's fine.

DB: Ok.

AD: There's more and more disassociation of the Ideas as we descend from one level of contemplation to the last level of contemplation. But I think-- I think that what we-- we're trying to distinguish and understand is what sort of knowledge or what sort of consciousness or what mode of being is it that Nature is operating with.

S (very faint): Yeah.

S: Yeah.

DB: Well-- Oh. Well I was just-- I was just going to say that-- that the only way we can understand this is to distinguish it from the-- the four gnostic faculties of man. And it's-- it seems to me that-- that it's an understanding of knowledge that it has these completely self-contained-- it's all with respect to the functioning of-- of this apparent universe, the interaction of the various parts of it. Whereas the gnostic faculty-- faculties seem to imply the transcendent spark.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah well-- yeah, we pointed out the gnostic function seems to distinguish the light which is given off by the soul of Nature itself. That seems to be the main distinction so far we've-- we've got between the-- the two of them, Nature and the bodhicitta.

LR: That-- say that again?

S (faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: I said what seems to distinguish [LR, faint: Bodhicitta.] between Nature and the bodhicitta [LR simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] is that the bodhicitta seems to have the gnostic functions of the soul [student assents] as part of its, you know, equipment or its heritage. [LR assents, very faint] Nature does not have that.

LR (simultaneously): Right. And yet they're both being-- they're both being projected from the World-Soul. One is imaginal essence and the other is bodhicitta. They're two different streams coming out of the World-Soul [AD: Uh-huh.] or project-- projected out. One seems to carry these gnostic faculties possibly as reflecting soul powers or something, I don't know. And the other doesn't, the other seems to have an imaginal essence or more like a dream state of consciousness. So it must be built-- there must be something in the cosmic soul that provides that paradigm for each one of those that they both are emitted from there in terms of (life/light). And one-- one is the imaginal essence.

AD: But isn't Nature according to Plotinus a self-subsistent principle?

LR: Yeah.

AD: And it's not a projection from the cosmic soul, that it is a self-- it is a being in its own right.

LR: I don't know.

AD: It depends upon cosmic soul, just like any lower principle depends on a higher principle in order for it to be what-- alright. And in so long that it maintains that contact, it maintains its existence as-- as that.

JfL: How about that it's--

LR: Where is it-- but excuse me Jeff, where would it-- its-- where would its status be apart from cosmic soul or beyond-- it has no status beyond cosmic soul or does it--

AD (simultaneously): No, what we're saying, what we're saying, now this is the Plo-- this is Plotinian theory, alright, that the being of the soul is dependent upon its contemplation of the Intellectual-Principle.

LR: Right.

AD: And it has being insofar that it is in that act of contemplation. In other words, the lower is always dependent on the higher. And that dependence, alright, provide-- in-- that dependence, if it is always like an eternal act, then it guarantees the existence of the soul. So the higher, the higher, is like-- doesn't even need the lower, doesn't even care for the lower. It is the lower that has to contemplate on a higher to maintain its own being.

LR: Right but in the case of soul then--

AD: And-- wait a minute. And the point is that Nature is one of those principles. Nature contemplates soul.

LR: I understand but in the case of soul, so they say, authent-- it's an authentic existence even though it's what you've just described. Now would you say Nature is an authentic existence?

AD: Yeah.

LR: So then you have to carry its principle all the way up to the ontic realm.

AD: Now where is that going to get us to understand Nature? [student assents] The reason [LR assents] we're establishing Nature as a reality, alright, is so that we could work with trying to understand what it is rather than derive it from the Intellectual-Principle.

RG (simultaneously): No, no. But it's important because if you-- if you then hold that it resides in the Intellectual-Principle or as a principle and it-- and in its outflow it [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): No, its immediate dependence [RG simultaneously: Is on soul.] is not on the Intelle-- is on soul.

RG: Right.

LR: Right.

RG: So it resides within soul even when it does--

AD (simultaneously): It doesn't reside within soul.

S (faint): Yeah.

SC: Seems that he says that-- yeah.

AD: It's dependent on soul.

RG: It has a link to soul.

AD: It has a link.

RG: And he says it never abandons its prior.

AD: It can't because if it did it would not exist if it abandoned its prior.

RG: Right.

AD: Ok.

RG: So in that--

AD: So Nature is a self-subsistent.

RG: Ok.

AD: Alright.

RG: But owes its existence in some sense.

AD: Well just like soul owes its existence to Intellectual-Principle.

[Audio File 1982 0320b ends abruptly]