Using Archetypal Models

Languages and Models of Reality

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• Using language is more than just learning a collection of words and a set of rules.  You also hold a model of reality.  This model is never expressly set out, but is implicit in way you use the grammar and vocabulary of the language.  The model puts certain constraints on language and how it's used in practice.  It also affects how the language evolves.   You could call this model a metalanguage, although that's a technical term in linguistics that may create confusion.  
   

  • ​For example, in English you could say "Ashley and Jill were together".  You hear this and assume what the sentence means is that are in the same room or general location, like in the kitchen together.  But there's another interpretation:  that Ashley and Jill were literally superimposed and occupied the same space at the same time.  You don't make this interpretation, however, because the model of reality behind spoken English is the world of ordinary appearances, where only one physical object can be in a specific time and place.
     

• ​We need more than just a common language to communicate with someone, we also need a shared model of reality.  At a social level, these models of reality change over time.  For example, the model of reality behind how we use modern Western languages tends to be reductionist and emphasizes the priority of the physical.  Note that it lags behind modern science; in many ways it is closer to the pure mechanistic view of reality of the early Enlightenment period which is one reason why some of the concepts of quantum mechanics are so difficult to articulate. 
   

• Now the interesting thing is that by learning a new way of using a language, you can access a different model of reality that may be richer for what you are trying to describe.   This is particularly true if this is a shared model reality used by a group of people, whether in the past or present.  These models of reality are superastral spaces that should be seen as objective things "out there", floating in the astral.  Once you access them, they can create additional flows of understanding (although they can also place limitations and prejudices on your viewpoint).
   

• For example, if you take a corporate job at a traditional institution like a management consulting firm or investment bank, you will observe that they have a certain way of using the language.  It's not only the jargon and words, but also the inflection, the way of organizing presentations, the proper response.    Here's one example from the Bridgespan Group, an impact investment consultant founded by Bain Capital alumni:
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  • "For their part, funders must come to grips with the unintended consequences of restricting funding to specific programs and starving NGOs of the resources needed to invest in operational efficiency. And they should stop focusing on low overhead as an indication of well-run organizations. Rather, funders and NGO leaders must shift the conversation to impact per dollar and what investments are required to maximize measurable results and create platforms for scale."
     

  • What do you notice when you tune into what's behind this type of language from a superastral level?  Don't judge in terms of bad or good, but rather what are its flavor and characteristics?
     

  • When you join these firms, it's not like you are handed a manual of vocabulary and rules.  It's more that you are expected to learn, and ascribe to, the model of reality of the organization, which then influences the way they use language.  The process is two-way, however; by learning to use the language you also establish closer links with the underlying model of reality.  If you are unaware, before you know it you start talking and sounding, and even scarier, thinking like a member of the group.
     

• ​​There are spiritual models of reality with their own vocabulary and metaphysical assumptions that are better for describing subjective experiences of consciousness.   You can learn and use these models even though you are still using English.  Most of these are from the premodern era.  If Samuel is right, it's because in the ancient past people could experience non-physical realities much better.  These models will seem quaint and outdated if you use them to simply describe physical reality.  But in terms of describing consciousness and non-physical energies, they can be quite rich and helpful.  They are another tool to map experiences of consciousness more precisely. 

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Some examples below.

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Yin/Yang; Taoist Cosmology

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• A binary model of fundamental opposites, but in a way that conveys a sense of complementary and interconnected forces rather than pure opposites.  Strong metaphysical sense of harmony, duality and balance.
   

• In English, 'negative' usually connotes something bad or undesirable.  Yin connotes a negative fullness and richness, even if opposite to yang, as opposed to the absence of something.  Generally speaking, yang is not superior to yin and vice versa.
   

• Yin doing (letting things emerge) vs. yang doing (making something happen).
   

The Gunas (sattvas, rajas, tamas)

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• From the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy.  To really understand the gunas you need to understand the deeper metaphysics of the Samkhya school as a whole.
   

• Not easy to translate, but often described as 'modes of existence'.  Sattvas is balance, purity or illumination; rajas is action, passion or agitation; and tamas is inertia, dullness or ignorance.  
   

• Underlying the model of the gunas are purusha, or pure consciousness, and prakriti, or form.  Prakriti is also translated as existence or nature.  Equivalent to the "Creation" in Claivision terms.  The gunas only apply to prakriti.  Everything in the Creation is constituted of some proportion of the gunas.
   

• The gunas are useful for describing how an object (i.e., a component of prakriti) carries or reflects the light of consciousness (purusha).  Something that is sattvic naturally carries the clear light of consciousness (illumination here means penetration by consciousness). Something that is tamasic is dull and inert.  
   

• The gunas are not static and so are helpful when describing processes   The proportions of the three gunas in objects varies, and the imbalance creates movement and changes.  The standard pattern of change is that tamas turns to rajas which becomes sattvas which becomes tamas.  
   

• Both rajas and sattvas are forces of awakening.  But in different ways.  Rajas creates agitation, it makes things move.  It is the antidote to tamas.  Sattvas is not agitated, but is transparent to the light of consciousness.  It is balanced, at peace; it shines.  Contemplate this relationship to understand why it is more effective to get out of a tamasic state using rajas rather than sattvas.

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The Elements

 

• Everyone will be familiar with these (air, earth, water, fire).  Originated in the ancient Greece.
   

• In Greek metaphysics the four elements were more like phases of matter (gas, solid, liquid) than actual physical substances.  We now know better, but the Greeks thought substances are always trying to return to their natural state.  Earth always tries to seek the center of the Earth (which is why earth falls down when you drop it).  Water is at a layer above earth and then moves horizontally (like a lake above the soil under it).  Air is above water.   Fire is something that always seeks to rise, even when you point it down (think of what happens when you turn a flame upside down). 
   

• Keep in mind the elements are not physical things, but more like vectors.  They have a sense of direction.
   

  • Fire: Warm but contained.  Always ascends.  Radiates without losing its integrity.
     

  • Air: Freely expands and ascends, but no center.
     

  • Water: Cool, adaptive but holds together.
     

  • Earth: Cold, adaptive, binding power, moves downward and to a place of rest.
     

• You want to feel the elements as archetypes and not in terms of sensory references.  You will find they are surprisingly rich in terms of passing the feel of subjective experiences of consciousness.  Think of fiery anger vs. watery anger, or an earthy vs. airy frame of mind.
   

Model of Emanations

 

• Quite common model of reality in spiritual schools such as Neoplatonism, Taoism, Indian schools as well as the Clairvision School.
   

• The fundamental principle is that reality is a hierarchy of subrealities that emanate out of a primary or center principle.

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• Clairvision students will be immediately familiar with this model and words such as involution, exvolution, etc.

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• Well suited for describing noetic and archetypal forces and their interaction with physical reality.
   

• Since we all live in an era of reductionism, actively using the model of emanations mitigates against the tendency to "flatten" reality into the physical.
   

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