There is now a Wikipedia page for William Arkle, which I drafted and submitted (with approval from Nick Arkle, WA's son) - the process took two months! Here 'tis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arkle
It currently reads:
William Arkle (1924 – 2000) was an English painter, esoteric philosopher and composer. He was described by Colin Wilson as "among the half dozen most remarkable men I have ever met..."[1]
William Arkle was born and educated in Bristol. During World War II he served as an engineering officer in the Royal Navy. After the war he trained as a painter at the Royal West of England Academy. Arkle's recognition as an artist culminated in his work being the major exhibit at the first Mind Body Spirit Festival in 1977. In the same year Arkle was the subject of a BBC television documentary in the series Life Story [2]. His first book "A Geography of Consciousness" (1974) was focused on spiritual and philosophical themes [3]. A second book was published in 1977, "The Great Gift", which concentrated on his paintings and poetry [4]. Arkle composed music which was a precursor of the later ambient style. He collaborated with Robert John Godfrey and The Enid in providing artwork for their 1976 album In the Region of the Summer Stars. Godfrey later orchestrated three of Arkle's compositions for a 1986 album "The Music of William Arkle": this was re-released on CD in 2017.
References
[1] William Arkle (1974). A Geography of Consciousness. London: Neville Spearman.
[2] "Genome: Radio Times 1923-2009". Retrieved 13 March 2018.
[3] William Arkle (1974). A Geography of Consciousness. London: Neville Spearman.
[4] William Arkle (1977). The Great Gift : the paintings of William Arkle. London: Neville Spearman.
Thursday, 17 May 2018
Sunday, 6 May 2018
The Hologram and Mind by William Arkle (published approx 1990) - The first part of the text
(Unfortunately, the whole e-text of this booklet by William Arkle is not currently available - and the diagram's are not reproduced here either; for what it's worth, here is what I have so far.)
In recent years, our scientists have discovered special sources of light in which there is only one wave length and in which all waves are aligned together to form a very harmonious condition called coherent light. Most of us are already familiar with this light under the name laser light, and we have come to know that it is a form of concentrated light that does not diffuse in the way that ordinary light does and, because of this, such a beam of light is able to travel long distances without loss of power and without losing its sharpness of definition. But this aspect of coherent light is not the one which is of primary interest in this discussion, although it is a necessary part of it.
The object of this essay is rather to draw attention to another phenomenon which has come out of the use of coherent light, or laser beam, and this is the principle of the holographic image or hologram. The reason for being interested in this process is that it defines principles of the behaviour of light waves which may be a valuable pointer to the way our mind nature functions, and the way that such minds interact with one another. When a beam of coherent light is divided into two parts which, later on, meet and interact together to form what is called an interference pattern, or the hologram, it becomes the source of several fruitful analogies which offer new models of the function of the mind. So we will only be using the physical hologram as a starting point to suggest the manner in which thought waves, rather than light waves, may work together both in our individual and universal natures.
To begin with we will look closely at the way in which this physical hologram is formed so that the mechanics of the process become clear enough for us to use in our further analogies. On the left side of the diagram we see the source of coherent light is a laser beam.
DIAGRAM 1 This beam passes to a half mirror where it is divided into two parts; one part continues on its way unaltered and is focused onto a photographic plate, while the other part is diverted by mirrors and is focused onto an object, after which, it is then allowed to pass on to meet its other original half-beam on the same photographic plate.
This meeting causes the two beams to interfere with each other as they are photographed on the film. The reason why they interfere rather than harmonise with each other is that, although they started as two exactly similar parts of the same beam of laser light, the fact that one of the halves of this beam has encountered an object on its way to the photographic plate has caused a distortion in this beam which is not present in the other beam. The nature of the distortion caused by the object is thus registered as the nature of the distortions caused when the two beams come together again. Such a meeting of waves which are slightly out of step with each other causes another set of waves to be set up which emanate from each point of discord or interference. All these very subtle interference wavelets thus form a pattern which registers the ‘grating effect’ that the one beam has on the other.
What happens now, is that, instead of a photograph of the object being produced on the plate, which we would expect in an ordinary photograph, we get a photograph of all the tiny squeaks and bangs caused by the first half of the beam having a difference of opinion with the second half of the beam. The pattern caused by this argument, called an interference pattern, turns out to be nothing like the pattern of the argument itself. This photograph is known as the hologram and appears to be a series of meaningless abstract shapes. It is therefore not a photograph for us to use if we wish to record the object in question but, strangely, it is more of an internal memorandum for the use of the light waves themselves in a language that we cannot understand. Yet there is a way in which this memorandum can be deciphered again.
If we wish to find out what the object was that the beams of light are having their argument about, it is found that we must use the same original source of coherent light that caused the hologram to be formed.
DIAGRAM 2 If we direct this specific light through the interference pattern on the photographic plate the language of the object of the light beams is again converted into the visual language of the object so that its image is reproduced again in a form that is recognisable. There are fringe benefits in this reproduction which are beyond what we expect from an ordinary photograph. It seems that there is such a concentration of information about the object in this holographic method of photography that a spread of detail is reproduced when we apply the coherent light, which causes the image to take on a more three-dimensional quality than normal. The spread of the information about the object being more informative than that of an ordinary camera, seems to tell us more about the solidity of the shapes.
However, it is not this three-dimensional ability either, that holds the most useful analogies for our purposes, but rather it is the way in which the two beams from the same source work together. The first part of the beam which remains unchanged as it meets the photographic plate is known as the 'reference beam', while the second half of the beam which is led to encounter the object is called the 'working beam' or the 'object beam'. The result of their encounter, which is the hologram itself, has another property which further draws attention to the special form of language in which the hologram is recorded. It is found that if the photograph of the interference pattern is made on a glass plate and the plate is broken into many pieces, each piece will respond to the original coherent light by producing the whole image of the object and not just part of the image as we might expect.
DIAGRAM 3 Obviously, the bigger the piece of the hologram in use, the clearer the image will be, but, even so, the fact that every piece of the hologram in some way repeats the information of every part of the hologram is pointing clearly to a principle which is of very great interest.
That the word hologram is used to describe this type of interference pattern indicates that there is a special process at work which gives a holistic effect. The term holistic is applied to events in which every part of the situation is considered to be in resonant response to every other part. It is as if every indivisible part of the whole were telling every other part about its experience, and, at the same time, each of these parts were listening for, and recording, what the other parts had to say.
A very simple analogy is when we say that every drop of the ocean contains the same elements as every other drop, and also contains the same elements as the ocean itself. But the more useful realisation is that the individuals on the photographic plate, which are the grains of the emulsion, are interlinked in a reciprocal way so that all the information of the group is shared, and yet, in which the value of the individual grain is important to the whole. But even this last analogy is misleading, for the essential holographic effect is happening in the light waves themselves before they are recorded on the grains of the photographic emulsion. The clarity of the holistic effect is then limited by the efficiency of the nature of light and the quality of the grain of the photograph.
In the case of water, we notice that if we drop two pebbles into a smooth surface, the ripples spread out and run over one another, creating nodes of interference as they go. But water is such a crude form of wave compared with light that the effect of the secondary waves spreading out from the nodes cannot be detected. When we come to light, the delicacy of response is very much improved, and so this secondary network from the nodes can be recorded. Even so, we know that this process is limited by the fact that the smaller pieces of the broken holographic plate do not give such a clear picture of the whole object.
But we can see that we have started to move in a definite direction of greater efficiency, so that the principle which is called holistic, whereby every part of a body of events is aware of, and sympathetic to, every other part, is gaining in effectiveness as the medium in which it occurs become finer and more completely efficient in response. We must therefore allow ourselves to conjecture that the nature of the waves created by thought in our mental nature is as far beyond light as light is beyond water, in delicacy and efficiency of response, so that the highest level of mind will carry a significance that is so efficient that it is also, by that very efficiency, unable to contain itself locally, and is thus bound to become universal in effect. Universal mind, having no resistance in terms of inefficiency, thus pervades everywhere with vision, understanding and awareness in a way that we humans limit to our immediate contact with one another by such terms as personal space.
Our understanding of the term interference pattern has now gone full circle. It started with the physical and least effective waves formed and meeting one another in water and then went on to light, where much better results were observed, and then went on to mind nature of a relatively higher order of responsiveness again. Whereas we can measure the effect of the first two scientifically, the last is beyond our present ability to observe in this way, and yet, our reason enables us to carry our understanding into this area. But, as the holism of the higher orders of our nature is approached, so the word interference begins to feel less suited to this pattern of interdependence, for what started out as a crude superimposition of one individual wave upon the privacy of another, has gradually turned into a symphony of awareness at the highest level, where the individuality of one wave is longing to engage with, and respond to, the individuality of another.
This last point is drawn out in this fashion in order to lead the argument, for those who are with it in spirit, to a more poetic plane of thought where we can immediately see the correspondence between these levels of holographic effect and the generalised understanding of the spiritual evolution of our human nature, through which we seem to begin with a feeling of irritation over the fact that other people are different from ourselves, and end with the feeling of thankfulness and gladness that they are so.
The next correspondence to be noticed in the nature of the hologram is one that we can take from the way in which the information contained in the holographic pattern is in a meaningless form of abstract lines and rhythmic intervals. All sorts of light may be applied to this photographic image, but none of them will have the effect of producing for us the picture of the object which has been recorded. There is only one key which will unlock the meaning of the message in this secret elemental language, and that is the exact form of coherent light which transcribed it in the first place. In human terms, it is saying that the light brought to bear on the situation is equivalent to an attitude of consciousness which will not be able to realise, or recognise, the true significance of the structure it is observing unless it takes an attitude similar to the one that put the structure there in the first place. What is being observed will consequently remain an apparent accident or intent, take up the attitude inherent in the causes leading to the existence of the observed phenomena.
We may come to this idea again later on in this discussion, but there are other factors present in the holographic process which produce interesting analogies. One is the nature of coherent light itself and the other is the way the coherent light beam is divided into two parts in order that one part should explore the object and the other part remain unaltered. This is rather like a reporter holding a pencil in one hand and a notebook in the other. The pencil hand is actively engaged in recording the elements of the situation in question, while the notebook hand is doing the very opposite by being completely passive and blind to anything but the point of the pencil. If the notebook hand became excitedly engaged in the event that the reporter was noticing, then it would begin to exert its own tensions and movements on the movements of the pencil, thus upsetting the writing with the wrong sort of interference. But if the reporter had forgotten his notebook, then the correct sort of interference would be absent to cause the friction which rubs the lead off the pencil and stores it.
There are many other things that the reporter could have in his hand which would not be able to do this special pattern creation with the pencil. In fact the pencil and paper situation is part of a holistic idea that has been carefully evolved and the one has no life without the other. We tend to take the passivity of the notebook for granted, but we should not allow ourselves to do this. In practice, it can be observed that it is quite as much an art to be learned for the reporter to keep his book hand still, and with the right strength to maintain that stillness under pressure, as it is to manage the pencil hand that follows the special writing shapes of words. The point that is being made here, is that we are generally biased, in our present cultural attitude, to favour the more flamboyant activity of the writing hand and not give due attention and respect to the hand that appears to have a less obvious role to play.
The analogy of the physical light hologram will help us to take this understanding further and make the principle inherent in it even plainer. For here we see, in the diagram that describes the making of the hologram, the reference half of the beam of laser light taking the place of the reporter’s notebook and the working half the place of the pencil. The holographic process is thus providing its own pencil and paper holistic idea in the form of light. The comments of the pencil are thus written on the paper by the working beam talking to the reference beam, in the language of light and in the nature of light, in mid air, as it were, in front of the photographic plate. It is just fortunate that such a substance as the photographic emulsion is able to be placed there in order to record this happening of light events. The fact that this observation of the object by light is spoken in the elemental language of light is made clear by the fact that we will never find the shape of the object, as we see it, when we examine this holographic photograph. It is very likely that this holographic image occurred many times in the experiments of scientists before someone accidentally recorded this elemental image and wondered what it was. We can also imagine that it was some time before the scientist found out that the significance of its content could only be projected by one specific form of light.
In the nature of light, even more than in the nature of a pencil and paper, we notice that there has to be much attention to the exact nature of the relatively passive reference beam as there is to the activity of the working beam. What we take for granted in the reference nature of the light is that it contains the essential nature of light itself and, in coherent light, in a very pure form. The syndrome that this is pointing towards is the one that causes us to notice what an interesting phenomenon this interference pattern is, and yet, miss the fact that it is the wonderful property of light that enables the process to happen at all, and it is the reference beam which is supporting and recording the original undistorted nature of that light. The working beam has gone off on an adventure which has caused a distortion of its original nature through the experience of the object upon which it has been focused.
It is important for the working beam to be able to recover itself again after shedding its load onto the reference beam, for if it were all we had left to shine through the hologram, this distorted form of the coherent light would not be able to unlock its secrets. From the point of view of the life of a human being, our spiritual philosophies suggest that evolution of the true individual is the etching of our unique responses to experience upon a permanent base of fundamental reality. Over a very long period, this builds up a spiritual individuality which is a uniquely different mixture of possible qualities and talents. But the great secret which is constantly being urged upon us is that the substance of our permanent base is already a living and conditioned entity, whose special nature is not simply the passivity of a clean sheet of paper, but a passivity whose nature is already like that of a wonderful Divine Being whose personal characteristic we have glimpsed in the lives of holistic men, or holy men, who carry them to earth. When the significance of this reaches our understanding, we realise that the permanent self we are endeavouring to quarry out of experience can only be recorded and substantiated in qualities that are coherent to the nature of our permanent basis of reality.
The small, self-centred and casual qualities of diminished human nature will never ‘take’ upon the permanent Divine Ground, and there is nothing that any saviour can do about it if mankind does not understand this. Example can be shown us, and the way pointed out and explained, but if we do not etch ourselves wisely upon eternal substance, our initial spirit of life will wilt and fade in a temporary exhibition of foolishness. When a saviour tells us there is nothing He can do for us if we choose to sin against the Holy Spirit, He is saying that His love for us is not enough if we fail to recognise and value the already established qualities of the Holistic Spirit of our Creator's Nature. For He is the permanence He is offering to us, and His are the talents that our individuality is able to combine in a unique mixture. Qualities and talents which are alien to this Reference Nature are simply not coherent enough to be recorded or noticed, and are thus considered to be unfit for the responsibilities which our endless living together will entail. This seems to be the grown-up version of the message which the Christian Religion is meant to give to us, and which is the element in it which does the actual saving from extinction, or the unnecessary pains resulting from behaviour whose patterns are contrary to the preconditioned patterns of essential life. We have made such a mess of our interpretations of the childish forms in which this message has come to us, that the efficacy and seriousness of their import has been lost. We are now mature enough in our intelligence to grasp these great equations of understanding and realise that they are no different to the nature of Highest Love, which has been our emotional guideline of Grace.
The holistic reality of life is now beginning to dawn on many people through their greater respect for the natural environment of nature, and the clear messages we are receiving from nature, that, if we misuse her, she will be unable to support our physical existence. We must now hope that such an attitude will carry on through the humanist expression of holistic thinking to the level where we encounter a spiritual holistic awareness, whose sense of idealism and social conscience is leavened by an attitude which does not imprison mankind in a comfortable, safe and caring society which feels no need for the knowledge that stems from the Divine Coherent Awareness. For humanistic idealism, while moving in the right direction, is still not potent enough to capture the whole spirit of man and burn it, with the correct intensity, upon the untarnished elements of our individual grail of life.
It emerges from this progressive scale of holism in the physical, psychic, spiritual and divine realms that the reciprocal principle of ‘do as you would be done by’ becomes more active and acute as the progression is made, so that our liking and respect for one another is not simply an expression of affection, but also a mechanical law. It is a law because all Creation is built upon a Primal Hologram and the reciprocity of the holistic interference nature functions throughout. We may also notice that the paper and pencil principle becomes a more living phenomenon as it moves into light waves, and thence into mind waves of a finer and finer order, until it is superbly efficient at the cosmic level, where information about all things is everywhere present in such a way that ordinary time and space considerations evaporate. Thus we may imagine the mind of God to be present everywhere, and the miraculous nature of mind most clearly indicated. The paradox being that, as the reality and faith we seek becomes available to us, it does so through the senses of our higher nature which we have been conditioned to ignore. We are then in the position of someone who is trying to reproduce the physical image, locked in a language of the interference patterns of light upon a holographic photo plate, but doing it with rough and ready incoherent forms of light which only produce vague and distorted images, or none at all.
Let us propose now, that there is a creative principle present in the hologram made in mind, which cannot occur in physical holograms. And let us allow that this creativity increases with the greater efficiency of the highest order of mind; not only because the definition and accuracy is more acute, but also because the mind nature becomes more aware in its most primal form.
DIAGRAM 4 In this diagram we will follow the process of our original hologram of light but, instead of the source being a laser beam of coherent light, we will replace it with coherent mind. The two beams will then separate into the reference beam and the working beam. This working beam will then be directed onto the object, which in this case will not be a physical object as before but, instead, an idea of purpose which emanates from the individual to whom this mind nature belongs.
The interaction of these two parts of the mind, which meet as before at the place of the holistic photograph, causes a pattern to arise which carries the purpose of the individual into definitions of explicit detail which previously were only latent in the idea of purpose. This correspondence between light and mind has now taken a step away from physical reality into that of conjecture. The strength of this philosophical discussion will therefore depend on how many loose ends are able to be tied together through its use, and how elegantly it is done. But we now have an analogy in the stuff of mind, which will require a great deal of insight to explain. The suggestion here is that the nature of mind is such that it is able to bring to bear a computing intelligence upon the object, which is an essential abstract image.
The nature of this image, which contains emotional equivalents as well as formal concepts of purpose, will thus act as a complex command pattern when the working beam of mind falls upon it. These commands will then be carried on by the working beam to be presented to the reference beam. Instead of the reference beam merely recording the stress difference between itself and that of the working beam, as in the light hologram, this living expression of the reference principle in the intelligent nature of mind searches for the best response available in its store of memory and understanding. The work of the reference beam is thus to act as a store of all that has ever occurred to mind experience, and to respond intelligently to any demand that the working beam makes upon it. The result is, as we have already said, not a mechanical measure of the stresses left in the working beam after its visit to the object, as in the case of light, but a reassembly of forms that have been understood, experienced and memorised, which most closely match the creative characteristics taken from the expression of the idea placed in the path of the working beam as it comes to remarry the reference beam in creative synthesis.
The leap in correspondence, which has been drawn from the analogy of the hologram, between the mechanical function of light and the intelligent function of mind will become a barrier for those people who like a scientific basis for reason. There is a temptation here to gloss over the many extremely different attributes that our argument is suggesting belong to mind which do not belong to matter. Those who are able to feel a continuity through this gap are those who have already taken note of the many factors in our daily life which science is unable to account for or begin to explain, and who are now looking for more intuitive attitudes with which they can tackle the understanding of life. But there is no disguising the fact that the change in ability of function, from the physical to the mental hologram, is very great indeed. This philosophy wishes to draw attention to this large and radical difference, for without this appreciation the value of further discussion will be lost.
To draw attention to the scale of change in our thinking at this point, we can imagine the difference between the speed of a snail compared to that of a fast aeroplane. But the differences we might have to prepare for in the nature of mind are far greater than these, and are certainly likely to be beyond anything we may find associated with the physical brain itself. We should expect such differences as exist between the speed and ability of a mathematical prodigy and that of the ordinary plodding pupil. The one gives a correct answer immediately to a problem that takes the other hours to complete. We may also look at the subtlety of a young Mozart, in terms of musical awareness, compared to that of his fellows. The extremes are so great that we often feel they are beyond comparison. The scientist Nikola Tesla showed many traits of this sort in his personality, which were not only the mathematical genius of the prodigy, but also the tremendous memory which enable the man to keep a record in his head of all the work he was ever engaged upon.
An even more wonderful ability appears in the mind of Tesla, which comes much closer to the hologram analogy we are looking for. This was Tesla’s extraordinary ability to build experimental models in his imagination, which were so clear and explicitly defined, that he was able to take measurements from them as one would from an engineering drawing. And more extraordinary still, in several cases he was able to run these prototype models of machines in his imagination as he would run them on a test bed in his workshop. These tests on the working models in his mind could be left to run on in one mental compartment while he consciously turned other aspects of his mind to practical problems in the world around him. When he wished, Tesla could withdraw the compartment in which a test taking place and look at his machine to see how it was performing, and whether it would have to be modified or not. The indications being that there are proper abilities in mind which are hardly displayed in our human nature because of the amount of that ability which is filtered off by the diminishments inherent in the human brain. When the individual psyche is suitably evolved, and the physical transmitter of the brain is finely adapted to it, we will likely find more often this characteristic of Tesla’s mind through which one part of its nature formulates the solution from a universal and timeless order. The intelligent way in which this is done we call genius, and is uncommon in our present human condition, but when we are able to liberate the true nature of mind we are lead to expect that such creative computing will become more common among all of us, and be felt to correspond to the exploratory activity of the working beam of mind being able to put questions to the reference beam of mind.
The implication in this ability of undiminished mind is not only that it is in continuous touch with the whole knowledge stored everywhere throughout the universe of mind, but also that the answers to problems are always available, and do not require time in the way we need time to cogitate and think about them. It is still wise to imagine that it will always be necessary for man to learn how to think in the cogitative way but, as in the case of our learning to drive a car, there comes a time when we must be able to switch from conscious to automatic ability, once that ability has been fully understood by us. In the case of the typewriter on which this discussion is being written, the fingers go to the keys as the words require them to do, but the conscious mind in use, which formulates the sequence of words to meet the ideas, would be quite unable to describe where the letters are upon the keyboard. This part of the activity was learned a long time ago and has become second nature or automatic, and in doing so has liberated the ability to transmit essential ideas of philosophical argument onto paper without the cogitation required when the learning process was happening. The hologram that is able to type is now in a compartment that deals with the movements of fingers and is no longer in that which deals with thinking awareness.
In a similar way, the ability to order thought in a sequence that would relate them effectively has been learned consciously through experience. But that literary ability to find the right word and sequence of words has become part of another hologram of experience. This hologram exists in the human world personality of the psyche and could be felt to be more closely associated with the two halves of the human brain. The left half being the defining, analytical part, while the right half is the reference part. The sense of artistic enjoyment arises in this hologram when the left brain fully trusts the ability of the right brain. The function is often spoiled by the left brain being so dominant, due to the bias received in its education, that it tries to dictate to the right brain what sort of answer it should come up with. The result is that the use of words becomes cramped and pedantic, and the unusual but more expressive word sequences suggested by the right brain are ignored.
Further to these holograms at the levels associated with the finger movements and the left and right brain, is another hologram which handles the definition of the philosophical concept with its working beam, and suggests a strategy of ideas to express the concept with its reference beam. We realise, of course that this encounter does not have to follow the special pattern we used in the diagram for the hologram of light. We can imagine that the synthesis of question and reply happens through a method which is as subtle as the genius of mind is subtle, and yet the two processes of question and answer are clear and distinct. The ability to pose a good problem, or ask a good question, is as much a part of the genius as that which is liable to bring forth a good response. The attitude of trust on the part of the questioner is also an integral part of the value of the reply. The fact that effort and force is alien to the correct working of this creative synthesis is apparent in the realisation that the reference beam is only too glad to give its best to the working beam. It does not need to be either forced, or even coaxed. Pressure of this sort is almost equivalent to rape, and simply shows that the individual has not reached the level of evolution which knows how to behave with proper respect. Such an immature person has not realised that force is distorting the question being asked and preconditioning the answer.
The fundamental hologram which causes the previous hologram to choose to discuss a series of philosophical ideas, can be understood to be one which sets the mood within which the individual finds some ideas more attractive than others. For most people this level of awareness and creativity is too tenuous to be observed and is consequently taken for granted. The usual attitude to this level of awareness is that it is simply who the person is. The collection of attitudes, in this case, is taken for the definition of identity. The individual is the choice of ideas, or he feels that he is the sum of the ideas that he likes. We may come to see that this is a reasonable half-truth, and does indicate a good deal about the nature of the individual, but the real truth is that the individual is still imprisoned by this idea of himself.
To be free of this limitation, this level of awareness can be taken to be another creative hologram in which the whole sense of self is able to be redesigned in the light of a deeper identity which can appreciate, as well as observe, such a situation. This is the hologram around which our proper spiritual and religious instincts come alive, for it is here that the wholeness of the individual gathers itself together as a working beam and presents itself to the Primal Reference Beam. The individual does this as he learns that The Primal Nature is the cause of all creation. As he becomes wise, a person checks his wisdom against the source of all wisdom. As he does this, the freedom of the way in which he does it confronts him. He comes to realise that he may relate to the Primal Reference Nature as part of an impersonal holographic function, or he may relate as a child to his Father-God, or a friend to his God, or a friend to his Friend.
DIAGRAM 5 The Primal Hologram may be taken in two difference ways. It can be understood in the way it is defined in this diagram, where we begin with Primal Coherent Awareness, which is also Divine Awareness. The passive and active natures are then divided into the reference beam, which can be considered to be the female and mother beam, and the working beam which describes the male and father beam. The masculine nature looks at the purpose for which creation is to be designed and then presents this set of considerations to the feminine nature which holds within it the store of all understanding and experience belonging to God. The interaction of these two natures, or two aspects of the same nature, is the blueprint for creation, including the pattern which brings about the human nature that we are experiencing. This Primal Hologram therefore permeates the whole of creation and is the one that has been previously described as being so efficient that its resonant, coherent understanding telescopes the time and space of the physical universe, with all its vast distances and numbers, into an instant whole.
DIAGRAM 6 As our human nature evolves and we become wise, so we learn to refer ourselves to the nature of the Primal Hologram in an impersonal way, or to God, its creator, in a more personal way.
In this diagram the awareness of God has designed a way of enabling a working beam to become involved with creation which contains the individual seeds of the nature of His children. These individuals gain experience of life, and are taught to refer their experience to the Divine Reference Nature present in the most essential level of their being. As they do this, a resultant individuality is imaged which has been modified by the Divine Nature and is thus able to become coherent to the permanent reality of God.
The art of contacting this reference nature is the subject of all religious and spiritual disciplines, and it can be seen to be the art of developing in ourselves a coherent attitude which closely resembles that from which all created things arose in the first place. When we achieve this coherent awareness within ourselves we also find that, if it is applied to the handiwork of God in His creation, it is as if we were applying coherent light of the correct sort to a holographic pattern. It immediately unlocks the ingredients of the hologram which had previously been hidden in it. When we look upon a landscape in this way, we not only see the hills and meadows, but we also begin to see the poetry of beauty and love which describes the nature of the person of God who put it there. We then see these same characteristics acting out the wonder, which is the inspiration for the whole of creation, in the living company about us; in an ugly form where they are misunderstood and abused, and beautiful where they are appreciated and enjoyed. But until we learn to conform to a coherent view of life, the complexity of the outer expressions of everyday living leave us with a feeling of bewilderment and futility. In this state all the unholistic characteristics of life abuse are encouraged.
The disciplines of mind control and meditation can now be understood as some of the means whereby we enable the minor holograms in our nature to link with the larger ones which lead to the Primal Hologram of God. But in the teaching and presence of Christ, we have a demonstration of the sort of person that our God is, that not only enables us to respond to His Holistic Spirit, but enables us to approach the living Person of that God from whom this Divine Hologram emanates. Whereas this Divine Hologram is a conscious spiritual presence which nurtures and guides all things in creation, it is there to pave the way for the true purpose of creation which comes about when mature, unique individuals choose to befriend one another, and their God, upon the Absolute Ground of Being, with full appreciation of one another and the fundamental integrity which accompanies it. It is then possible to live out the significance of the true nature of love in the context of endless growth and discovery which is the virile aspect of divine friendship.
When we look into this creative aspect of friendship, we realise that the permutation of the potential within the unique mixture of characteristics present in real individuals leads to endless numbers of new schemes of manifestation in which such potential is worked out in explicit detail. In terms of this philosophy, we can say that friendship of this order is the interference pattern caused by one person’s working beam touching upon the reference beam of the other, so that our creativity is not limited to our own potential alone, but is widened to include that of all our friends, which multiplies the situation to an enormous extent. Thus our God removes the restriction He might feel without friends, being a limit set on joyous fulfilment leading to what we can describe as boredom. But with only a handful of friends, there are new mixtures of potential available which will fill such lives almost endlessly.
DIAGRAM 7 In this diagram, two individuals are represented by the two different geometrical shapes. In the space between them we see the point of creative permutation, which is like a Pandora’s Box from which flows a fountain of new combinations of characteristics inherent in the two individuals. The distance between the two persons is that which defines the difference between living potential and collapse.
If the situation collapses, then the two forms fuse with each other permanently so that there is no longer an ‘I-thou’ relationship. By becoming completely one they short-circuit the potential of tension which exists in their difference, which is the fire of new life and creativity. This living fire can only be kept alive upon the knife edge caused by the balance between the will to unite and the will to create, between the restful oneness of the mother and the restless exploration of the father.
In the highest order of friendship we learn to play both male and female roles towards one another, in the sense that we are able to participate with either our female reference nature or our masculine working nature to bring about new holograms of creative endeavour. If it is the case that this highest friendship is what is sought in this present creative endeavour by our God, then we can understand how important it is that only true individualities arise from it, but that they are able to appreciate the will to creativity which enable them to stand upon their own ground, and apart from one another, in the context of a limitless appreciation of one another, which is the love our God longs to share with us.
It is probably true to say that all the paradoxes and enigmas of life will one day turn out to be the great equations of being, through which, in our mature understanding, we will realise that much of the way our reality is coming to us is the only way it can properly occur. When we feel that the way people misbehave to one another creates an inference that our God of love cannot really exist, it is because we do not yet understand the real significance of God’s endeavour. We still think of it as the failure of God to programme us properly, so that we would live in harmony automatically.
When it dawns upon us that our God is giving us so much more reality than mechanical obedience we realise that He cannot avoid the equation by which we must learn every value for ourselves through the freedom of trial and error of experience. This much fuller gift requires a tremendously long and thorough education, in which we not only grow our real individuality, but also acquire the strength and understanding to handle it with integrity and fullness of zest. No wonder that we do not understand the significance of life when most of us are still at the primary level, and no wonder that one short term is not sufficient to take in all the lessons needed to move to higher schools and eventually graduate.
The attitude of coherent awareness is none other than that described as Christ consciousness, and that is exactly why the spirit contained in His life is able to germinate the spirit in our life until our own coherence can reach out and touch upon the great reference nature of God, our best friend. Only Jesus has portrayed the paradox of power confronted by a humility of affection which points specifically towards this enigma of highest friendship. Now we can begin to see all this in terms of the sublime equations which govern that great drama of His life.
Yet another reason comes to us as we look at the need God may have for real mature friends. We realise that it is only such people, and none other, who can really understand all of God’s treasures. To possess a number of beautiful things and have no one to share them with can detract from the full enjoyment of them. Older children can understand something of such treasured things, young children almost nothing; only mature individuals who can draw on rich experience are able to feel as God feels about His greatest treasures. It may seem strange at first, but it is not unreasonable to consider that God longs for friends to whom He can show His most beautiful possessions. With great patience He is offering us our education so that one day some of us may choose to look into his most intensely beautiful treasure chest and understand why it is so. Perhaps all, or perhaps only some will be able to do this.
No one knows the ultimate secrets within loving friendship any more than we know the ultimate secrets within loving friendship any more than we know the ultimate nature of humans we call friend. These things remain to be endlessly disclosed and constitute a further reason for valuing one another. As a guide, we notice that the man Jesus could not help being closer to his disciple John in the personal sense, although He loved them all. There is nothing any of us can do about this, it is the mysterious personal chemistry of love which can never be tamed and will always apply. Even amongst the most intensely beautiful treasures, those who are able to view them will be drawn to one thing rather than another. And this is how we would always have it, the reasonable unpredictableness of individuals, fully alive amongst one another, responsive to the Primal Hologram of God but never collapsing upon it. The Divine Hologram itself always being willing towards us, as we are learning to be willing towards it, up to the parameters of the Great Holistic Spirit whose nature is the limit set upon this.
In recent years, our scientists have discovered special sources of light in which there is only one wave length and in which all waves are aligned together to form a very harmonious condition called coherent light. Most of us are already familiar with this light under the name laser light, and we have come to know that it is a form of concentrated light that does not diffuse in the way that ordinary light does and, because of this, such a beam of light is able to travel long distances without loss of power and without losing its sharpness of definition. But this aspect of coherent light is not the one which is of primary interest in this discussion, although it is a necessary part of it.
The object of this essay is rather to draw attention to another phenomenon which has come out of the use of coherent light, or laser beam, and this is the principle of the holographic image or hologram. The reason for being interested in this process is that it defines principles of the behaviour of light waves which may be a valuable pointer to the way our mind nature functions, and the way that such minds interact with one another. When a beam of coherent light is divided into two parts which, later on, meet and interact together to form what is called an interference pattern, or the hologram, it becomes the source of several fruitful analogies which offer new models of the function of the mind. So we will only be using the physical hologram as a starting point to suggest the manner in which thought waves, rather than light waves, may work together both in our individual and universal natures.
To begin with we will look closely at the way in which this physical hologram is formed so that the mechanics of the process become clear enough for us to use in our further analogies. On the left side of the diagram we see the source of coherent light is a laser beam.
DIAGRAM 1 This beam passes to a half mirror where it is divided into two parts; one part continues on its way unaltered and is focused onto a photographic plate, while the other part is diverted by mirrors and is focused onto an object, after which, it is then allowed to pass on to meet its other original half-beam on the same photographic plate.
This meeting causes the two beams to interfere with each other as they are photographed on the film. The reason why they interfere rather than harmonise with each other is that, although they started as two exactly similar parts of the same beam of laser light, the fact that one of the halves of this beam has encountered an object on its way to the photographic plate has caused a distortion in this beam which is not present in the other beam. The nature of the distortion caused by the object is thus registered as the nature of the distortions caused when the two beams come together again. Such a meeting of waves which are slightly out of step with each other causes another set of waves to be set up which emanate from each point of discord or interference. All these very subtle interference wavelets thus form a pattern which registers the ‘grating effect’ that the one beam has on the other.
What happens now, is that, instead of a photograph of the object being produced on the plate, which we would expect in an ordinary photograph, we get a photograph of all the tiny squeaks and bangs caused by the first half of the beam having a difference of opinion with the second half of the beam. The pattern caused by this argument, called an interference pattern, turns out to be nothing like the pattern of the argument itself. This photograph is known as the hologram and appears to be a series of meaningless abstract shapes. It is therefore not a photograph for us to use if we wish to record the object in question but, strangely, it is more of an internal memorandum for the use of the light waves themselves in a language that we cannot understand. Yet there is a way in which this memorandum can be deciphered again.
If we wish to find out what the object was that the beams of light are having their argument about, it is found that we must use the same original source of coherent light that caused the hologram to be formed.
DIAGRAM 2 If we direct this specific light through the interference pattern on the photographic plate the language of the object of the light beams is again converted into the visual language of the object so that its image is reproduced again in a form that is recognisable. There are fringe benefits in this reproduction which are beyond what we expect from an ordinary photograph. It seems that there is such a concentration of information about the object in this holographic method of photography that a spread of detail is reproduced when we apply the coherent light, which causes the image to take on a more three-dimensional quality than normal. The spread of the information about the object being more informative than that of an ordinary camera, seems to tell us more about the solidity of the shapes.
However, it is not this three-dimensional ability either, that holds the most useful analogies for our purposes, but rather it is the way in which the two beams from the same source work together. The first part of the beam which remains unchanged as it meets the photographic plate is known as the 'reference beam', while the second half of the beam which is led to encounter the object is called the 'working beam' or the 'object beam'. The result of their encounter, which is the hologram itself, has another property which further draws attention to the special form of language in which the hologram is recorded. It is found that if the photograph of the interference pattern is made on a glass plate and the plate is broken into many pieces, each piece will respond to the original coherent light by producing the whole image of the object and not just part of the image as we might expect.
DIAGRAM 3 Obviously, the bigger the piece of the hologram in use, the clearer the image will be, but, even so, the fact that every piece of the hologram in some way repeats the information of every part of the hologram is pointing clearly to a principle which is of very great interest.
That the word hologram is used to describe this type of interference pattern indicates that there is a special process at work which gives a holistic effect. The term holistic is applied to events in which every part of the situation is considered to be in resonant response to every other part. It is as if every indivisible part of the whole were telling every other part about its experience, and, at the same time, each of these parts were listening for, and recording, what the other parts had to say.
A very simple analogy is when we say that every drop of the ocean contains the same elements as every other drop, and also contains the same elements as the ocean itself. But the more useful realisation is that the individuals on the photographic plate, which are the grains of the emulsion, are interlinked in a reciprocal way so that all the information of the group is shared, and yet, in which the value of the individual grain is important to the whole. But even this last analogy is misleading, for the essential holographic effect is happening in the light waves themselves before they are recorded on the grains of the photographic emulsion. The clarity of the holistic effect is then limited by the efficiency of the nature of light and the quality of the grain of the photograph.
In the case of water, we notice that if we drop two pebbles into a smooth surface, the ripples spread out and run over one another, creating nodes of interference as they go. But water is such a crude form of wave compared with light that the effect of the secondary waves spreading out from the nodes cannot be detected. When we come to light, the delicacy of response is very much improved, and so this secondary network from the nodes can be recorded. Even so, we know that this process is limited by the fact that the smaller pieces of the broken holographic plate do not give such a clear picture of the whole object.
But we can see that we have started to move in a definite direction of greater efficiency, so that the principle which is called holistic, whereby every part of a body of events is aware of, and sympathetic to, every other part, is gaining in effectiveness as the medium in which it occurs become finer and more completely efficient in response. We must therefore allow ourselves to conjecture that the nature of the waves created by thought in our mental nature is as far beyond light as light is beyond water, in delicacy and efficiency of response, so that the highest level of mind will carry a significance that is so efficient that it is also, by that very efficiency, unable to contain itself locally, and is thus bound to become universal in effect. Universal mind, having no resistance in terms of inefficiency, thus pervades everywhere with vision, understanding and awareness in a way that we humans limit to our immediate contact with one another by such terms as personal space.
Our understanding of the term interference pattern has now gone full circle. It started with the physical and least effective waves formed and meeting one another in water and then went on to light, where much better results were observed, and then went on to mind nature of a relatively higher order of responsiveness again. Whereas we can measure the effect of the first two scientifically, the last is beyond our present ability to observe in this way, and yet, our reason enables us to carry our understanding into this area. But, as the holism of the higher orders of our nature is approached, so the word interference begins to feel less suited to this pattern of interdependence, for what started out as a crude superimposition of one individual wave upon the privacy of another, has gradually turned into a symphony of awareness at the highest level, where the individuality of one wave is longing to engage with, and respond to, the individuality of another.
This last point is drawn out in this fashion in order to lead the argument, for those who are with it in spirit, to a more poetic plane of thought where we can immediately see the correspondence between these levels of holographic effect and the generalised understanding of the spiritual evolution of our human nature, through which we seem to begin with a feeling of irritation over the fact that other people are different from ourselves, and end with the feeling of thankfulness and gladness that they are so.
The next correspondence to be noticed in the nature of the hologram is one that we can take from the way in which the information contained in the holographic pattern is in a meaningless form of abstract lines and rhythmic intervals. All sorts of light may be applied to this photographic image, but none of them will have the effect of producing for us the picture of the object which has been recorded. There is only one key which will unlock the meaning of the message in this secret elemental language, and that is the exact form of coherent light which transcribed it in the first place. In human terms, it is saying that the light brought to bear on the situation is equivalent to an attitude of consciousness which will not be able to realise, or recognise, the true significance of the structure it is observing unless it takes an attitude similar to the one that put the structure there in the first place. What is being observed will consequently remain an apparent accident or intent, take up the attitude inherent in the causes leading to the existence of the observed phenomena.
We may come to this idea again later on in this discussion, but there are other factors present in the holographic process which produce interesting analogies. One is the nature of coherent light itself and the other is the way the coherent light beam is divided into two parts in order that one part should explore the object and the other part remain unaltered. This is rather like a reporter holding a pencil in one hand and a notebook in the other. The pencil hand is actively engaged in recording the elements of the situation in question, while the notebook hand is doing the very opposite by being completely passive and blind to anything but the point of the pencil. If the notebook hand became excitedly engaged in the event that the reporter was noticing, then it would begin to exert its own tensions and movements on the movements of the pencil, thus upsetting the writing with the wrong sort of interference. But if the reporter had forgotten his notebook, then the correct sort of interference would be absent to cause the friction which rubs the lead off the pencil and stores it.
There are many other things that the reporter could have in his hand which would not be able to do this special pattern creation with the pencil. In fact the pencil and paper situation is part of a holistic idea that has been carefully evolved and the one has no life without the other. We tend to take the passivity of the notebook for granted, but we should not allow ourselves to do this. In practice, it can be observed that it is quite as much an art to be learned for the reporter to keep his book hand still, and with the right strength to maintain that stillness under pressure, as it is to manage the pencil hand that follows the special writing shapes of words. The point that is being made here, is that we are generally biased, in our present cultural attitude, to favour the more flamboyant activity of the writing hand and not give due attention and respect to the hand that appears to have a less obvious role to play.
The analogy of the physical light hologram will help us to take this understanding further and make the principle inherent in it even plainer. For here we see, in the diagram that describes the making of the hologram, the reference half of the beam of laser light taking the place of the reporter’s notebook and the working half the place of the pencil. The holographic process is thus providing its own pencil and paper holistic idea in the form of light. The comments of the pencil are thus written on the paper by the working beam talking to the reference beam, in the language of light and in the nature of light, in mid air, as it were, in front of the photographic plate. It is just fortunate that such a substance as the photographic emulsion is able to be placed there in order to record this happening of light events. The fact that this observation of the object by light is spoken in the elemental language of light is made clear by the fact that we will never find the shape of the object, as we see it, when we examine this holographic photograph. It is very likely that this holographic image occurred many times in the experiments of scientists before someone accidentally recorded this elemental image and wondered what it was. We can also imagine that it was some time before the scientist found out that the significance of its content could only be projected by one specific form of light.
In the nature of light, even more than in the nature of a pencil and paper, we notice that there has to be much attention to the exact nature of the relatively passive reference beam as there is to the activity of the working beam. What we take for granted in the reference nature of the light is that it contains the essential nature of light itself and, in coherent light, in a very pure form. The syndrome that this is pointing towards is the one that causes us to notice what an interesting phenomenon this interference pattern is, and yet, miss the fact that it is the wonderful property of light that enables the process to happen at all, and it is the reference beam which is supporting and recording the original undistorted nature of that light. The working beam has gone off on an adventure which has caused a distortion of its original nature through the experience of the object upon which it has been focused.
It is important for the working beam to be able to recover itself again after shedding its load onto the reference beam, for if it were all we had left to shine through the hologram, this distorted form of the coherent light would not be able to unlock its secrets. From the point of view of the life of a human being, our spiritual philosophies suggest that evolution of the true individual is the etching of our unique responses to experience upon a permanent base of fundamental reality. Over a very long period, this builds up a spiritual individuality which is a uniquely different mixture of possible qualities and talents. But the great secret which is constantly being urged upon us is that the substance of our permanent base is already a living and conditioned entity, whose special nature is not simply the passivity of a clean sheet of paper, but a passivity whose nature is already like that of a wonderful Divine Being whose personal characteristic we have glimpsed in the lives of holistic men, or holy men, who carry them to earth. When the significance of this reaches our understanding, we realise that the permanent self we are endeavouring to quarry out of experience can only be recorded and substantiated in qualities that are coherent to the nature of our permanent basis of reality.
The small, self-centred and casual qualities of diminished human nature will never ‘take’ upon the permanent Divine Ground, and there is nothing that any saviour can do about it if mankind does not understand this. Example can be shown us, and the way pointed out and explained, but if we do not etch ourselves wisely upon eternal substance, our initial spirit of life will wilt and fade in a temporary exhibition of foolishness. When a saviour tells us there is nothing He can do for us if we choose to sin against the Holy Spirit, He is saying that His love for us is not enough if we fail to recognise and value the already established qualities of the Holistic Spirit of our Creator's Nature. For He is the permanence He is offering to us, and His are the talents that our individuality is able to combine in a unique mixture. Qualities and talents which are alien to this Reference Nature are simply not coherent enough to be recorded or noticed, and are thus considered to be unfit for the responsibilities which our endless living together will entail. This seems to be the grown-up version of the message which the Christian Religion is meant to give to us, and which is the element in it which does the actual saving from extinction, or the unnecessary pains resulting from behaviour whose patterns are contrary to the preconditioned patterns of essential life. We have made such a mess of our interpretations of the childish forms in which this message has come to us, that the efficacy and seriousness of their import has been lost. We are now mature enough in our intelligence to grasp these great equations of understanding and realise that they are no different to the nature of Highest Love, which has been our emotional guideline of Grace.
The holistic reality of life is now beginning to dawn on many people through their greater respect for the natural environment of nature, and the clear messages we are receiving from nature, that, if we misuse her, she will be unable to support our physical existence. We must now hope that such an attitude will carry on through the humanist expression of holistic thinking to the level where we encounter a spiritual holistic awareness, whose sense of idealism and social conscience is leavened by an attitude which does not imprison mankind in a comfortable, safe and caring society which feels no need for the knowledge that stems from the Divine Coherent Awareness. For humanistic idealism, while moving in the right direction, is still not potent enough to capture the whole spirit of man and burn it, with the correct intensity, upon the untarnished elements of our individual grail of life.
It emerges from this progressive scale of holism in the physical, psychic, spiritual and divine realms that the reciprocal principle of ‘do as you would be done by’ becomes more active and acute as the progression is made, so that our liking and respect for one another is not simply an expression of affection, but also a mechanical law. It is a law because all Creation is built upon a Primal Hologram and the reciprocity of the holistic interference nature functions throughout. We may also notice that the paper and pencil principle becomes a more living phenomenon as it moves into light waves, and thence into mind waves of a finer and finer order, until it is superbly efficient at the cosmic level, where information about all things is everywhere present in such a way that ordinary time and space considerations evaporate. Thus we may imagine the mind of God to be present everywhere, and the miraculous nature of mind most clearly indicated. The paradox being that, as the reality and faith we seek becomes available to us, it does so through the senses of our higher nature which we have been conditioned to ignore. We are then in the position of someone who is trying to reproduce the physical image, locked in a language of the interference patterns of light upon a holographic photo plate, but doing it with rough and ready incoherent forms of light which only produce vague and distorted images, or none at all.
Let us propose now, that there is a creative principle present in the hologram made in mind, which cannot occur in physical holograms. And let us allow that this creativity increases with the greater efficiency of the highest order of mind; not only because the definition and accuracy is more acute, but also because the mind nature becomes more aware in its most primal form.
DIAGRAM 4 In this diagram we will follow the process of our original hologram of light but, instead of the source being a laser beam of coherent light, we will replace it with coherent mind. The two beams will then separate into the reference beam and the working beam. This working beam will then be directed onto the object, which in this case will not be a physical object as before but, instead, an idea of purpose which emanates from the individual to whom this mind nature belongs.
The interaction of these two parts of the mind, which meet as before at the place of the holistic photograph, causes a pattern to arise which carries the purpose of the individual into definitions of explicit detail which previously were only latent in the idea of purpose. This correspondence between light and mind has now taken a step away from physical reality into that of conjecture. The strength of this philosophical discussion will therefore depend on how many loose ends are able to be tied together through its use, and how elegantly it is done. But we now have an analogy in the stuff of mind, which will require a great deal of insight to explain. The suggestion here is that the nature of mind is such that it is able to bring to bear a computing intelligence upon the object, which is an essential abstract image.
The nature of this image, which contains emotional equivalents as well as formal concepts of purpose, will thus act as a complex command pattern when the working beam of mind falls upon it. These commands will then be carried on by the working beam to be presented to the reference beam. Instead of the reference beam merely recording the stress difference between itself and that of the working beam, as in the light hologram, this living expression of the reference principle in the intelligent nature of mind searches for the best response available in its store of memory and understanding. The work of the reference beam is thus to act as a store of all that has ever occurred to mind experience, and to respond intelligently to any demand that the working beam makes upon it. The result is, as we have already said, not a mechanical measure of the stresses left in the working beam after its visit to the object, as in the case of light, but a reassembly of forms that have been understood, experienced and memorised, which most closely match the creative characteristics taken from the expression of the idea placed in the path of the working beam as it comes to remarry the reference beam in creative synthesis.
The leap in correspondence, which has been drawn from the analogy of the hologram, between the mechanical function of light and the intelligent function of mind will become a barrier for those people who like a scientific basis for reason. There is a temptation here to gloss over the many extremely different attributes that our argument is suggesting belong to mind which do not belong to matter. Those who are able to feel a continuity through this gap are those who have already taken note of the many factors in our daily life which science is unable to account for or begin to explain, and who are now looking for more intuitive attitudes with which they can tackle the understanding of life. But there is no disguising the fact that the change in ability of function, from the physical to the mental hologram, is very great indeed. This philosophy wishes to draw attention to this large and radical difference, for without this appreciation the value of further discussion will be lost.
To draw attention to the scale of change in our thinking at this point, we can imagine the difference between the speed of a snail compared to that of a fast aeroplane. But the differences we might have to prepare for in the nature of mind are far greater than these, and are certainly likely to be beyond anything we may find associated with the physical brain itself. We should expect such differences as exist between the speed and ability of a mathematical prodigy and that of the ordinary plodding pupil. The one gives a correct answer immediately to a problem that takes the other hours to complete. We may also look at the subtlety of a young Mozart, in terms of musical awareness, compared to that of his fellows. The extremes are so great that we often feel they are beyond comparison. The scientist Nikola Tesla showed many traits of this sort in his personality, which were not only the mathematical genius of the prodigy, but also the tremendous memory which enable the man to keep a record in his head of all the work he was ever engaged upon.
An even more wonderful ability appears in the mind of Tesla, which comes much closer to the hologram analogy we are looking for. This was Tesla’s extraordinary ability to build experimental models in his imagination, which were so clear and explicitly defined, that he was able to take measurements from them as one would from an engineering drawing. And more extraordinary still, in several cases he was able to run these prototype models of machines in his imagination as he would run them on a test bed in his workshop. These tests on the working models in his mind could be left to run on in one mental compartment while he consciously turned other aspects of his mind to practical problems in the world around him. When he wished, Tesla could withdraw the compartment in which a test taking place and look at his machine to see how it was performing, and whether it would have to be modified or not. The indications being that there are proper abilities in mind which are hardly displayed in our human nature because of the amount of that ability which is filtered off by the diminishments inherent in the human brain. When the individual psyche is suitably evolved, and the physical transmitter of the brain is finely adapted to it, we will likely find more often this characteristic of Tesla’s mind through which one part of its nature formulates the solution from a universal and timeless order. The intelligent way in which this is done we call genius, and is uncommon in our present human condition, but when we are able to liberate the true nature of mind we are lead to expect that such creative computing will become more common among all of us, and be felt to correspond to the exploratory activity of the working beam of mind being able to put questions to the reference beam of mind.
The implication in this ability of undiminished mind is not only that it is in continuous touch with the whole knowledge stored everywhere throughout the universe of mind, but also that the answers to problems are always available, and do not require time in the way we need time to cogitate and think about them. It is still wise to imagine that it will always be necessary for man to learn how to think in the cogitative way but, as in the case of our learning to drive a car, there comes a time when we must be able to switch from conscious to automatic ability, once that ability has been fully understood by us. In the case of the typewriter on which this discussion is being written, the fingers go to the keys as the words require them to do, but the conscious mind in use, which formulates the sequence of words to meet the ideas, would be quite unable to describe where the letters are upon the keyboard. This part of the activity was learned a long time ago and has become second nature or automatic, and in doing so has liberated the ability to transmit essential ideas of philosophical argument onto paper without the cogitation required when the learning process was happening. The hologram that is able to type is now in a compartment that deals with the movements of fingers and is no longer in that which deals with thinking awareness.
In a similar way, the ability to order thought in a sequence that would relate them effectively has been learned consciously through experience. But that literary ability to find the right word and sequence of words has become part of another hologram of experience. This hologram exists in the human world personality of the psyche and could be felt to be more closely associated with the two halves of the human brain. The left half being the defining, analytical part, while the right half is the reference part. The sense of artistic enjoyment arises in this hologram when the left brain fully trusts the ability of the right brain. The function is often spoiled by the left brain being so dominant, due to the bias received in its education, that it tries to dictate to the right brain what sort of answer it should come up with. The result is that the use of words becomes cramped and pedantic, and the unusual but more expressive word sequences suggested by the right brain are ignored.
Further to these holograms at the levels associated with the finger movements and the left and right brain, is another hologram which handles the definition of the philosophical concept with its working beam, and suggests a strategy of ideas to express the concept with its reference beam. We realise, of course that this encounter does not have to follow the special pattern we used in the diagram for the hologram of light. We can imagine that the synthesis of question and reply happens through a method which is as subtle as the genius of mind is subtle, and yet the two processes of question and answer are clear and distinct. The ability to pose a good problem, or ask a good question, is as much a part of the genius as that which is liable to bring forth a good response. The attitude of trust on the part of the questioner is also an integral part of the value of the reply. The fact that effort and force is alien to the correct working of this creative synthesis is apparent in the realisation that the reference beam is only too glad to give its best to the working beam. It does not need to be either forced, or even coaxed. Pressure of this sort is almost equivalent to rape, and simply shows that the individual has not reached the level of evolution which knows how to behave with proper respect. Such an immature person has not realised that force is distorting the question being asked and preconditioning the answer.
The fundamental hologram which causes the previous hologram to choose to discuss a series of philosophical ideas, can be understood to be one which sets the mood within which the individual finds some ideas more attractive than others. For most people this level of awareness and creativity is too tenuous to be observed and is consequently taken for granted. The usual attitude to this level of awareness is that it is simply who the person is. The collection of attitudes, in this case, is taken for the definition of identity. The individual is the choice of ideas, or he feels that he is the sum of the ideas that he likes. We may come to see that this is a reasonable half-truth, and does indicate a good deal about the nature of the individual, but the real truth is that the individual is still imprisoned by this idea of himself.
To be free of this limitation, this level of awareness can be taken to be another creative hologram in which the whole sense of self is able to be redesigned in the light of a deeper identity which can appreciate, as well as observe, such a situation. This is the hologram around which our proper spiritual and religious instincts come alive, for it is here that the wholeness of the individual gathers itself together as a working beam and presents itself to the Primal Reference Beam. The individual does this as he learns that The Primal Nature is the cause of all creation. As he becomes wise, a person checks his wisdom against the source of all wisdom. As he does this, the freedom of the way in which he does it confronts him. He comes to realise that he may relate to the Primal Reference Nature as part of an impersonal holographic function, or he may relate as a child to his Father-God, or a friend to his God, or a friend to his Friend.
DIAGRAM 5 The Primal Hologram may be taken in two difference ways. It can be understood in the way it is defined in this diagram, where we begin with Primal Coherent Awareness, which is also Divine Awareness. The passive and active natures are then divided into the reference beam, which can be considered to be the female and mother beam, and the working beam which describes the male and father beam. The masculine nature looks at the purpose for which creation is to be designed and then presents this set of considerations to the feminine nature which holds within it the store of all understanding and experience belonging to God. The interaction of these two natures, or two aspects of the same nature, is the blueprint for creation, including the pattern which brings about the human nature that we are experiencing. This Primal Hologram therefore permeates the whole of creation and is the one that has been previously described as being so efficient that its resonant, coherent understanding telescopes the time and space of the physical universe, with all its vast distances and numbers, into an instant whole.
DIAGRAM 6 As our human nature evolves and we become wise, so we learn to refer ourselves to the nature of the Primal Hologram in an impersonal way, or to God, its creator, in a more personal way.
In this diagram the awareness of God has designed a way of enabling a working beam to become involved with creation which contains the individual seeds of the nature of His children. These individuals gain experience of life, and are taught to refer their experience to the Divine Reference Nature present in the most essential level of their being. As they do this, a resultant individuality is imaged which has been modified by the Divine Nature and is thus able to become coherent to the permanent reality of God.
The art of contacting this reference nature is the subject of all religious and spiritual disciplines, and it can be seen to be the art of developing in ourselves a coherent attitude which closely resembles that from which all created things arose in the first place. When we achieve this coherent awareness within ourselves we also find that, if it is applied to the handiwork of God in His creation, it is as if we were applying coherent light of the correct sort to a holographic pattern. It immediately unlocks the ingredients of the hologram which had previously been hidden in it. When we look upon a landscape in this way, we not only see the hills and meadows, but we also begin to see the poetry of beauty and love which describes the nature of the person of God who put it there. We then see these same characteristics acting out the wonder, which is the inspiration for the whole of creation, in the living company about us; in an ugly form where they are misunderstood and abused, and beautiful where they are appreciated and enjoyed. But until we learn to conform to a coherent view of life, the complexity of the outer expressions of everyday living leave us with a feeling of bewilderment and futility. In this state all the unholistic characteristics of life abuse are encouraged.
The disciplines of mind control and meditation can now be understood as some of the means whereby we enable the minor holograms in our nature to link with the larger ones which lead to the Primal Hologram of God. But in the teaching and presence of Christ, we have a demonstration of the sort of person that our God is, that not only enables us to respond to His Holistic Spirit, but enables us to approach the living Person of that God from whom this Divine Hologram emanates. Whereas this Divine Hologram is a conscious spiritual presence which nurtures and guides all things in creation, it is there to pave the way for the true purpose of creation which comes about when mature, unique individuals choose to befriend one another, and their God, upon the Absolute Ground of Being, with full appreciation of one another and the fundamental integrity which accompanies it. It is then possible to live out the significance of the true nature of love in the context of endless growth and discovery which is the virile aspect of divine friendship.
When we look into this creative aspect of friendship, we realise that the permutation of the potential within the unique mixture of characteristics present in real individuals leads to endless numbers of new schemes of manifestation in which such potential is worked out in explicit detail. In terms of this philosophy, we can say that friendship of this order is the interference pattern caused by one person’s working beam touching upon the reference beam of the other, so that our creativity is not limited to our own potential alone, but is widened to include that of all our friends, which multiplies the situation to an enormous extent. Thus our God removes the restriction He might feel without friends, being a limit set on joyous fulfilment leading to what we can describe as boredom. But with only a handful of friends, there are new mixtures of potential available which will fill such lives almost endlessly.
DIAGRAM 7 In this diagram, two individuals are represented by the two different geometrical shapes. In the space between them we see the point of creative permutation, which is like a Pandora’s Box from which flows a fountain of new combinations of characteristics inherent in the two individuals. The distance between the two persons is that which defines the difference between living potential and collapse.
If the situation collapses, then the two forms fuse with each other permanently so that there is no longer an ‘I-thou’ relationship. By becoming completely one they short-circuit the potential of tension which exists in their difference, which is the fire of new life and creativity. This living fire can only be kept alive upon the knife edge caused by the balance between the will to unite and the will to create, between the restful oneness of the mother and the restless exploration of the father.
In the highest order of friendship we learn to play both male and female roles towards one another, in the sense that we are able to participate with either our female reference nature or our masculine working nature to bring about new holograms of creative endeavour. If it is the case that this highest friendship is what is sought in this present creative endeavour by our God, then we can understand how important it is that only true individualities arise from it, but that they are able to appreciate the will to creativity which enable them to stand upon their own ground, and apart from one another, in the context of a limitless appreciation of one another, which is the love our God longs to share with us.
It is probably true to say that all the paradoxes and enigmas of life will one day turn out to be the great equations of being, through which, in our mature understanding, we will realise that much of the way our reality is coming to us is the only way it can properly occur. When we feel that the way people misbehave to one another creates an inference that our God of love cannot really exist, it is because we do not yet understand the real significance of God’s endeavour. We still think of it as the failure of God to programme us properly, so that we would live in harmony automatically.
When it dawns upon us that our God is giving us so much more reality than mechanical obedience we realise that He cannot avoid the equation by which we must learn every value for ourselves through the freedom of trial and error of experience. This much fuller gift requires a tremendously long and thorough education, in which we not only grow our real individuality, but also acquire the strength and understanding to handle it with integrity and fullness of zest. No wonder that we do not understand the significance of life when most of us are still at the primary level, and no wonder that one short term is not sufficient to take in all the lessons needed to move to higher schools and eventually graduate.
The attitude of coherent awareness is none other than that described as Christ consciousness, and that is exactly why the spirit contained in His life is able to germinate the spirit in our life until our own coherence can reach out and touch upon the great reference nature of God, our best friend. Only Jesus has portrayed the paradox of power confronted by a humility of affection which points specifically towards this enigma of highest friendship. Now we can begin to see all this in terms of the sublime equations which govern that great drama of His life.
Yet another reason comes to us as we look at the need God may have for real mature friends. We realise that it is only such people, and none other, who can really understand all of God’s treasures. To possess a number of beautiful things and have no one to share them with can detract from the full enjoyment of them. Older children can understand something of such treasured things, young children almost nothing; only mature individuals who can draw on rich experience are able to feel as God feels about His greatest treasures. It may seem strange at first, but it is not unreasonable to consider that God longs for friends to whom He can show His most beautiful possessions. With great patience He is offering us our education so that one day some of us may choose to look into his most intensely beautiful treasure chest and understand why it is so. Perhaps all, or perhaps only some will be able to do this.
No one knows the ultimate secrets within loving friendship any more than we know the ultimate secrets within loving friendship any more than we know the ultimate nature of humans we call friend. These things remain to be endlessly disclosed and constitute a further reason for valuing one another. As a guide, we notice that the man Jesus could not help being closer to his disciple John in the personal sense, although He loved them all. There is nothing any of us can do about this, it is the mysterious personal chemistry of love which can never be tamed and will always apply. Even amongst the most intensely beautiful treasures, those who are able to view them will be drawn to one thing rather than another. And this is how we would always have it, the reasonable unpredictableness of individuals, fully alive amongst one another, responsive to the Primal Hologram of God but never collapsing upon it. The Divine Hologram itself always being willing towards us, as we are learning to be willing towards it, up to the parameters of the Great Holistic Spirit whose nature is the limit set upon this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)