F-6 Centaur (Vision Logic)
An
informal Phenomenological narrative:
"All things are
related to all things. When I first had that realization, perhaps when I was a
young girl, maybe fourteen or so, it completely changed my life! I would later
learn names for this—holism and so on— but at the time, all I knew was that
all things were related to, connected to, all things. Twenty years, two
husbands, no kids, three jobs, and one National Book Award later, I still
believe this firmly!
My book, To Re-weave the Web, is a detailed account of this
holistic view, based not only on all the late-breaking scientific
discoveries—and oh there are so many! from chaos theory to quantum physics to
complexity theories and systems theory, my head just spins, it’s so exciting!—~but
also we have the holism of the indigenous peoples the world over, who knew all
this stuff way before modern science stumbled onto it. The Great Goddess
returns! Gaia is alive! All things are related to all things.
This is wondrous, isn’t it? Now that science is catching up
with this holistic interwoven view—why, I was writing about this years
ago!—I am looked upon as something of a forerunner. So I have become a heroine,
imagine that! I’ve been asked to be on this board and that, serve on this
journal and that, go to this conference and that. Me! Imagine that!
Oh, I forgot. Not just the indigenous beliefs, but Eastern
mysticism, too. All saying the same thing, about the web of life, all things and
all things and all of that and so on. So
I don't see why those Zen people keep annoying me and asking if I meditate. What
difference does it make?, I keep asking them. If you believe that everything is
connected to everything, what else is there? You do it your way, which is meditation,
and I do it my way, which is called holistic thinking. They said, that was just
an idea and could I show them this oneness right now? And that made no sense to
me at all. They’re just being obnoxious, I think, like they know it all.
Imagine that!"
One
Taste; pp.146-146.
“As consciousness begins to transcend the verbal ego-mind it can… integrate
the ego mind with all the lower levels. That is, because consciousness is no
longer identified with any of these elements to the exclusion of any others,
all of them can be integrated: the body, the persona, the shadow, the ego- all
can be brought into a higher- order integration.”
Atman Project pg. 53
“One
contacts and stabilizes on the centaur level, the elements of the gross
personality- the body, the ego, the persona, the shadow, the lower chakras-
tend to fall into harmony of themselves. For the individual is beginning to
transcend them, and thus he ceases to compulsively manipulate and exploit
them….This is the stage describes as one of autonomy, of integration, of authenticity,
or of self-actualization….”
Atman Project pg.54
“The
centaur, the integrated and total self, above and prior to body, mind persona
and shadow, but embracing as it were all of them as experiences.”
Atman Project pg.54
“The
implication is that one’s full potential springs from what Rogers calls the
“total, ongoing psychophysiological flow” or “total organismic experiencing,”
and not from any aspect or fragment of that flow- ego, body, superego,
self-concept, and so on. In our terms self-actualization is intimately related
to the centaur level, and is not directly available to the ego or persona
levels.”
Atman Project pg.55
“Actual autonomy (and self-actualization) would result, and could only result by
definition, with the conscious emergence
of this totality- a type of shift of identity from any of the fragments
(ego, persona, body) to their prior and higher integration. According to
existential thought, when an individual’s self is felt or prehended as the
prior, total being, he assumes-can
assume- responsibility for his entire-being-in-the world….The individual starts
to move on the whole, as a whole- and that is what Leslie Faber has called the
“spontaneous will.”
Atman Project pg.56
“May equates in general terms the spontaneous will of the total self with what
is called intentionality by the
existentialists, which is why he says that intentionality “is the missing link
between mind and body…the body tends to be “involuntary” or “spontaneous”…The
ego,, on the other hand , we generally assume to be the home of many voluntary,
controlled and purposive activities. The total self, then, as the higher
ego-and body union, is a type of conjunction of both theses experiential
realms- the voluntary and the involuntary.”
Atman Project pg.56
“I call the cognitive aspect of intentionality the vision-image or higher
phantasy process. “ Imagination,” says May,” is the home of
intentionality.” Or better: “Intentionality is an imaginative attention which
underlies our intentions and informs our actions. We might say that the
cognitive aspect of intentionality is vision-image, and the conative aspect is
intentionality, both, I believe springing from the higher-order unity of mind
and body called centaur.”
Atman Project pg.57
“Intentionality
is the spontaneous will of the bodymind centaur, and vision-image or
high-phantasy is its language.”
Atman Project pg.57
“In Jung’s own words, “ the image is equally an expression of the unconscious as of the conscious situation of the moment. The interpretation of its meaning, therefore, can proceed exclusively neither from the unconscious not from the conscious, but only from their reciprocal relation.”
Atman
Project pg.58
“For the mature phantasy of the centaur is definitely prior to language, but it
is not preverbal. It is transverbal.“
Atman Project pg.59
“As
Robert Masters puts it: The distinction
between noetic imagination (vision-image) and fantasy (primary process) has
been stated in various ways by philosophers and mystics through the ages.
Paracelsus doubtless meant the same thing when he cautioned against confusing
the imagination vera of the
alchemists with fantasy. “ that cornerstone of fools.” The imaginal world is
the visionary-world, the world of theophanic as of other visions, and it
becomes perceptible to us only through a special cognitive imagination.”
Atman Project pg.63
“The
phantasy process is not now a way to regress to preverbal phantasies, but a way
to contact transverbal realities. It serves as a transition ( and a symbol of
transformation) from the existential realm into the transpersonal. It is an
extremely important cognitive mode, not just for the centaur levels but for the
higher levels as well, which is why deep imagery and visualization, but never
abstract conceptualization, are used I many forms of transpersonal meditation.”
Atman Project pg.63
“
There is preverbal (primary process),
and there is verbal (secondary
process)- and above and beyond both, as a magic synthesis, there is transverbal: intentionality,
high-phantasy, and the vision-image.”
Atman Project pg.65
“The
infantile bodyego is preconsensus, premembership, presocial, preadjustment. The
mature bodymind or centaur begins to go transconsensus, transmembership,
transsocial, transadjustment…..the dividing line is membership cognition.”
Atman Project pg.65
“(Biosocial
Band) ….Bio-“ denotes “body” (typhon) and “social” denotes “membership” and
“membership concepts”-thus the biosocial band represents the upper limit of membership cognition and gross
bodily orientation, beyond which lie those realms of being which transcend
conventional, egoic, institutional and social forms.”
Atman Project pg. 66
“At
the mature centaur level, the immediate and vivid present is indeed the
dominant mode of time, but the individual now has complete access to the entire conventional world of extended
temporal realities as well. He is not confined to the present (like the child
bodyego), he is simply grounded in it; and he is not ignorant of historical time, he is just no longer bound to it
(like the ego). The typhon is presequential time, the centaur is
transsequential time.”
Atman Project pg.68
“Since
the mode of time of the existential level is the immediate, vivid and living
present, many centaur therapists use this as one of the new translations given to the client. That
is ( in addition to some of the other centaur translations we have discussed,
such as vision-image and intentionality), the translation of “ seeing all
reality as present” is commonly used (as in Gestalt Therapy- “only the now is real”.) The individual learns to
see thoughts of yesterday as present occurrences, and anticipations of
tomorrow as present activities…. He
then transforms to existential time;
the whole abstract and ghostly world of linear time- now that it has served its
purpose- collapses into the intensity of the present. The individual simply
continues this translation (the “working through”) until the transformation is
more or less complete and he is
generally grounded in, but not confined to, the living present.”
Atman Project pg.68
“The
infantile bodyego can see only the
present; the centaur can see all time
from the present.”
Atman Project pg.69
“In the mature centaur, “this immediate discharge” appears as spontaneity and impulse expression…And again, studies of impulse expression and spontaneity show that the child and the most developed adults share these traits, whereas the individuals in the intermediate stages ( the average ego/persona realms) do not…. The infant bodymind has a preverbal, preinhibition spontaneity, whereas the mature centaur evidences a transverbal, transcontrol, transinhibition freedom. But let us finish this discussion by noting, with Loevinger, that this fact “ does not justify the conclusion that intermediate stages of (membership and egoic) rigid controls can be bypassed.”
Atman
Project pg.69
“While this level is trans-verbal, it is trans-personal.
That is, while it transcends language, gross concepts , and the gross ego, it
does not transcend existence, personal orientation, or waking
psychophysiological awareness. It is the last stage dominated by normal forms
of space and time- but those forms are still there.”
Atman Project pg.70
“This
whole level- which is a disidentification with the ego and a higher-order
identification with the total bodymind- marks the highest potential that can be
reached in the existential or gross realm. It is very much what John Lilly
(following Gurdjieff) called “state +12”, which is “blissful state; cosmic
love, reception of grace (higher energies), heightened bodily awareness
(supersensory); highest function of bodily consciousness.”
Atman Project pg.71
“This
state is also similar to the initial stages of the path of Da Free John, where,
relaxing thought and desire through attentive inquiry, one intuits an
“unqualified sense of relationship”. This unqualified sense of relationship,
enjoyed while, paradoxically, still aware of the perception of the world and one’s bodily presence within it, is
intuition of the all-pervading Divine Presence.”
Atman Project pg.71
“The
existential centaur, then, is not only the higher-order integration of ego,
body, persona, and shadow, it is also the major transition towards the higher
subtle and transpersonal realms of being. ( Notice that Stan Grof’s research
seems to support this thesis very strongly) This is so in both the centaurs
“supersensory” modality, and in its cognitive process of intuition,
intentionality, and vision-image. They are all intimations of the higher realms
of transcendence and integration.”
Atman Project pg.72
cognitive
style- transverbal vision-image, high-phantasy, synthesis of primary and
secondary processes; transconsensual affective elements- prehension,
spontaneity, impulse expression, supersensory, heartfelt conative/motivational
factors- intentionality, creative wish, meaning, spontaneous will,
self-actualization, autonomy temporal mode- grounded in the present moment,
aware of linear time as exfoliating from the present mode of self- integrated,
autonomous, transbiosocial, total bodymind being”
Atman Project pg.71