The Genesis of Genesis : The Mytho-Empiricism of Creation [1 ed.] 9781443827621, 9781443826471

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The Genesis of Genesis

The Genesis of Genesis: The Mytho-Empiricism of Creation

By

Shlomo Giora Shoham

The Genesis of Genesis: The Mytho-Empiricism of Creation, by Shlomo Giora Shoham This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Shlomo Giora Shoham All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2647-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2647-1

In memory of Martin Mordechai Buber and Claude Lévi-Strauss who taught me the power of myth and dialogue.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Foreword .................................................................................................... xi Professor Aharon Kellerman Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 The Personality and its Mythogenic Structuring of Space and Time Chapter One............................................................................................... 67 The Developmental Duality of Duration, Extension and Now Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 99 Sacred and Profane Space and Time Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 147 The Pale Shadows of Eternity: How do Relativity and Quantum Mechanics Account for the Spatio-Temporal Aquarium? Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 235 Fiat Lux et Homo Faber: Let There be Light and Man the Creator Glossary................................................................................................... 295 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 301

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to my editor, Frances le Roux, for her attention to detail and constructive criticism. Without her help, this book would not have been published. I also wish to thank Amanda Millar at CSP for her technical assistance. The book has been published with the generous help of the Zefat Academic College.

FOREWORD

Our college is one of interdisciplinary studies with a strong affiliation to sociology, religion and culture. Genesis of Genesis: The Mytho-Empiricism of Creation is a volume that complements our ethos of learning. It is an important work about the mytho-empiricism of creation. Our College is situated in a city distinguished by education and spiritual exploration since the 16th century. Our aim is to preserve ancient cultures in the Galilee by integrating old with new and serving as a stepping stone towards a creative and innovative society. Professor Shoham’s volume reflects this too. His innovative theories combine the old and new – from Egyptian mythologies, through Kabbalistic teachings, to the modern theories on creation. We are honored at the Zefat Academic College to have on our faculty an author of such standing as Professor Shlomo Giora Shoham. We believe that together we can be innovative and always challenging our students and readers. —Professor Aharon Kellerman President, Zefat Academic College, Israel

INTRODUCTION THE PERSONALITY AND ITS MYTHOGENIC STRUCTURING OF SPACE AND TIME

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This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says no rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing That this is what we fear – no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anesthetic from which none come around. —Phillip Larkin, Aubade

ȀȡȠȞȠȢ (Kronos), the son of the sky God, Uranus, and the earth Goddess, Gaia, ate his children who were destined to overcome him. Hence his sister and mother of his children, Rhea, presented him with a rock, which he swallowed thinking it was his son, Zeus. In so doing, Rhea saved the chief deity of Olympus. ȀȡȠȞȠȢ is also denoted as ȤȡȠȞȠȢ, time. Therefore, mytho-empirically, diachronic time in Greek mythology is self-destructive, or rather, cannibalizes itself. The future is devoured by the past. Heidegger convincingly described that the “not yet” future becomes the “already nonexistent” past, without any ontological evidence, or as he writes, existentialia of the present.1 Thus diachronic time does not seem to exist. In Greek mythology, Prometheus (literally meaning foresight), steals fire and gives it to mortals. As punishment he ends up chained to a rock with a vulture tearing away at his liver. His brother, Epimetheus (literally meaning hindsight), forever deploring his lost opportunities, is given Pandora as a bride. Her dowry box releases evil. Hope remains in his wife’s casket, not to mitigate doomed humanities’ coerced lot, ananké. In ancient Greek, synchronicity is non-existent. Not so in Judaism. Diachronic time is spelled out clearly in Ecclesiastes.2 Yet synchronic

2

Introduction

sacred time is evident in God’s name: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, which connotes a continuous present-future. Also, the Torah, the Divine fount of the spiritual existence for the Jews, was deemed to be endowed synchronically with all of Israel in all the ages, being miraculously present.3 In addition, there is no concept of being late or early in the Torah,4 as it exists synchronically in the “eternal now,” to use Paul Tillich’s phrase. Hence Judaic temporal mytho-empiricism is dual; the mundane diachronicity and the sacred synchronicity which marks the Jews’ dichotomous essence, with a marked bias towards the latter. The ontological arguments as to the constancy or change of being, and hence of time, did not start with Parmenides and Heraclites, but were highlighted by them. Parmenides claimed that the ontological reality “out there” is static, whereas Heraclites brandished his truism that “one cannot step twice in the same river.”5 The solution to this dilemma is that constancy and flux share a complementarity, as expounded by Niels Bohr. Static reality and flux subsist together without losing, like in dialectics, their unique ontology. Hence the Judaic synchronic God declares that “For I am the Lord, I change not,”6 whereas diachronic appearances may agree with Heraclites that everything is in a state of flux (ʌĮȞIJĮ ȡİȚ). Henry Bergson had some insights into the nature of time as a duration (dureé), a Heraclitean ever-changing state of flux. However, he did not account for the constancy of synchronicity. It was left to the existentialists, especially Kierkegaard and Buber, to assure us that ontology is a relationship, an IThou and an I-It relationship. This dichotomy was extant in Judaism as the “worship in the concrete,” the beatification of everyday routines as preached by the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of the Hassidic movement, and the synchronic quietism of the great Maggid of Meseritz, who preached for a unity with the wholeness of Divine nothingness. Mytho-empirically, this dichotomy may be gleaned from the saga of Gilgamesh. He tried to achieve immortality by using his power and manipulation, but to no avail; only the spirit is indestructible and eternal.7 The spirit is a unity reflected differently in all life-forms, yet in itself and by itself, it is a synchronic wholeness. A similar theme is the Kabbalistic contention that the vessels (kelim) are the containers descending into history in which the cosmic light manifests itself, but the light emanates from synchronic divinity.8 The I Ching, the book of changes, states the complementarity between the synchronic spirit and the diachronic body as follows: “The great attribute of heaven and earth is the giving and maintaining life.”9 It means that living without ceasing is nothing but the way of heaven and earth. In the way of heaven and earth there is no death, but life; there is no divergence, but convergence. This is because the way

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of heaven and earth is at one with life. Though the bodies of ancestors may perish, their spirits are inherited by future generations, whose spirits are eternal. Rightly, it may be said that no one dies.”10 Darwinian evolution may therefore be regarded as a denial of death as the genotypes and phenotypes embody and reflect the impact of past generations on future ones. Likewise, culture is transmitted by individual creative mythogenes into the mythologies of the social character. These mythologies are transmitted, in a Lamarquean manner, to the Authentic Domain, which is very much like Jung’s collective subconscious and Poppers third world. The notion “that space-time possessed a stratified structure … with a continuous succession of three dimensional strata, each of which represented a particular cosmic ‘now’ or ‘present’”11 died out with classical Newtonianism. The theory of special relativity holds that to an observer, both space and time disappear with objects whose velocity approaches the speed of light. Yet, special relativity does not impede us from regarding the arrow of diachronic time as inherent in the changes of entropy related to the second rule of thermo-dynamics. Nor does relativity contradict our contention that synchronicity may be hypothesized to exist outside the boundaries of spatio-temporality, which are encompassed by the constancy of the speed of light. Piaget has expressed the most intelligent concept of time reached by observing the development of young children: We find that in children – and this concept is interesting from the epistemological viewpoint – intuition of velocity precedes the notion of measurability. This intuition is of a purely ordinal nature. In other words, it is based simply on the order of moving figures. This notion will naturally imply a comparison between two moving figures, and it will not be possible to apply it to the velocity of a single, isolated object. But, in the case where there are two moving figures, there will be an intuitive idea as to which has the greater velocity. This involves an estimate of velocity according to order of positions, which early in life a child will make by affirming that one moving figure which overtakes another is faster than the moving figure overtaken. In this case the idea of overtaking is independent of duration. In effect, the idea of overtaking simply implies both a spatial and a temporal order. If moving figure A happens to be behind figure B at time t¹ and then A is ahead of B at time t², the only ideas involved in the judging of overtaking are those of “behind” and “ahead of” in space, and “before” and “after” in time.12

Since we also subscribe to the developmental idea of spatio-temporality, we agree that the cognition of “overtaking” is the most constitutive component of diachronic time. Hence, time is a coordination of movements with their speeds, whereas space is a coordination of changes of space.13

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Introduction

Therefore, time must be coordinated with space as its fourth dimension. Both time and space constitute the raw material for the habitat within the diachronic aquarium of creation encased by the speed of light as its impenetrable border. The universe exists in spatio-temporality as its cosmic essence-medium like fish swimming in the waters of their glass aquarium. We take Stephen Hawking’s advice and regard space and time as stretching along a continuum,14 but our continuum is different to the one envisaged by him. We know from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle that we cannot measure both space (position) and time (momentum) in the quantum world, since one is entwined with the other in a synthetic wholeness. We adopt David Bohm’s position in this matter: When we think of movement in terms of the implicate order, however, these problems do not arise. In this order, movement is comprehended in terms of a series of inner-penetrating and intermingling elements in different degrees of enfoldment all present together. The activity of this movement then presents no difficulty, because it is an outcome of this whole enfolded order, and is determined by relationships of co-present elements, rather than by the relationships of elements that exist to others that no longer exist.15

The uncertainty principle, which is the statistical non-concrete evolution of energy potential, allows us to take out from the implicate order, or from the super position of Schrödinger’s wave function (quantum state), one of two entwined variables. This is a binaric concept; we prefer Roger Penrose’s neo-Platonic approach16 in which the relationship between space and time is analogically graded along a continuum. However, our continuum is also structured with space and time complementing each other as conceived by Niels Bohr in his Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.17

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Figure 0.1 is a graphic representation of our continuum: Synapsis

Time

Space

Fig 0.1: Our continuum where space and time keep their individual nature Space and time in the explicate order of diachronicity keep their individual nature yet complement each other at all times. Thus, when moving along the spatio-temporal continuum, space and time can be perceived with varying magnitudes as in the diachronic aquarium in the “classical” world both space and time are perceived separately while complementing each other. We present our spatio-temporal continuum with a synapsis between space and time while allowing each to keep their distinct identity. Per contra, in the quantum world, where everything is in a state of implicate order, which is a unified synthesis, the uncertainty principle allows us to “fish out” of the superposition only one variable at a time. Time is a perception of momentum in relation to other objects, and space is a perception of position coordinates in relation to other objects. This perception holds only for the classic diachronic world; in the quantum world, everything is in a superposition of an implicate order until observed and measured. Like the theory of relativity, Kant conceives time and space as perceptual structures, yet these structures build our diachronic aquarium bordered by the speed of light, outside of which, life as we know it cannot exist. Hence time and space as perceptual entities are not only interdependent, but serve also as the scaffolding for our spatiotemporal aquarium. This is not unlike the spider that structures its abode with the webs emanating from itself. Piaget writes that a gradual process

6

Introduction

of learning forms the subjective structures of space and time.18 We adopt this view together with our developmental personality theory. We hold that the perception of time could be related to the movement of nourishment in the infant’s digestive tract at early orality and the perception of space could be linked to the bumps against hard surfaces after the emergence of the separate self at later orality.19 Heidegger’s analysis of time construes a future which becomes a past, without any real duration for the present, which is just an Augenblick, an eye-blink.20 January, the first month of the year coming after the end of the previous year, is named after Janus the Roman God of transition. He is depicted as being double-faced – facing the past and the future. There is no relating to the present. When we are young and optimistic, the future is pregnant with hope for us. When old and disillusioned, we may lament, as in Ecclesiastes, that what has been shall be and that there is nothing new under the sun. If we were serving a life sentence at the Shawshank penitentiary, Red (played by Morgan Freeman) would reproach Andy (played by Tim Robbins) that hope was a dangerous thing as it induces one to nurse unrealistic expectations. To experience the present, one has to emerge from diachronicity and enter, through revelation, or by means of an authentic creative extasis, into synchronicity, which is a different mode of being. This transition from history onto a continuous present is effected by free choice whereas the instantaneous transition from future to past, is mostly a deterministic coercion. The latter is mytho-empiricized by the Greek ananké, a constraint to which all – man, Gods and heavenly bodies – are subject. Figure 0.2 depicts the graphic chart representing the transition from future to past, devised by Minkowski21:

Fig. 0.2: The transition from future to past

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The passage from the “not yet” future through the Heideggerean Augenblick to the already bygone past, signifies the classic “aquarium” diachronicity. Per contra, the synchronic existence is outside the spatiotemporal continuum. It is different in essence and phenomenology from all the parameters of diachronicity. Still, when we remember, recall or reminisce the past, as does Proust, it is a bygone time as recollected now; memory is always filtered by the present. Hence the dureé, the authentic continuity of our lives, evolves and is formed by a continuous becoming of an eternal now.22 Thus authentic being can only be experienced in synchronicity. Historicism, survival of the fittest, and dialectical materialism rightly portray the cruelty of diachronicity and the lack of any values, hopes and longing to mitigate the finality of the judgment of Darwinian evolution. With Darwinism, only successes count and the losers become fossils. Hence Joseph Stalin, one of the worst mass murderers in human history, justified the master-slave system as it was vindicated by historical necessity.23 The paramount importance of the synchronic present stems also from the fact that the patterns of experience and longing which are structured into mythogenes, the building blocks of creativity and culture, are amassed, gleaned, and shaped in the present. Whatever one’s actual experiences in the past and one’s quests and expectations for the future are, both are selectively perceived according to one’s needs and moods in the present, which is the time in which the mythogene was structured. Therefore the fount of creativity and creation is the synchronic present, while the end result is the diachronic aquarium of space and time. This premise is important for our later discussion on the mytho-empiricism of theogony, cosmogony and anthropogony. Since synchronicity is the source of creativity and creation through the formation in it of mythogenes, it is conceived as being the developmental origin of the holy, the sacred, and the Divine. Thus, In Judaism, God is denoted Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh,24 which is a continuous present-future. The Torah was endowed on Mount Sinai to all the generations of Israel which were considered to be synchronically present.25 The myth of the Burning Bush is of particular significance.26 We take this mytho-empirically to be the “eye-blink” of the instant linkage between future and past. The fleeting moment becomes miraculously continuous to endow the revelatory energy (fire) to form, in the “eternal now,” a constant flow of synchronically-colored reminiscences of the past and longing for a bright future. These are structured in the mythogenes which are our prime movers and the creators of our spatio-temporal universe. Figure 0.3 shows how this dynamic relates to our diachronic chart:

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Introduction

Fig. 0.3: The myth of the Burning Bush in the diachronic chart The myth of the Burning Bush signifies the bond between our diachronic and the synchronic modes of existence. It is from the synchronic mode of existence that we draw out the revelatory raw materials with which we structure the blueprints (mythogenes) for the formation of the universe and everything in it. This we cannot do by ourselves, but, as we shall see later, we are prodded in our creative endeavors by the world soul, the anima mundi, the neo-Platonic Nous, which is reflected in every one of us as a mediator between the world consciousness and the chaos of energy-matter. The super-string theory could support our contention of the sprouting from the spatio-temporal aquarium of diachronicity onto synchronicity to effect a revelation and structure a creative mythogene The Kalabi law of the formation of space (time) allows for the breaking up of its connecting bridge. A new round connecting structure is formed in the gap. This is represented graphically, in figure 0.4:27

Fig. 0.4: Graphical representation of Kalabi’s Law of the formation of time and space

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Figure A shows the disjuncture between the two parts of diachronic spatio-temporality and figure B presents the mending of the rupture by a round structure. By analogy, diachronic space-time may be broken up in its thin interstitial connection in the eye-blink present and a Burning Bush revelation may effect the structuring of a mythogene represented by the round link of figure 0.5: “eye-blink” present

future

past

experience

longing

Fig. 0.5: The formation of the Mythogenic Structure in the eye-blink present between the future and the past As pointed out, the past experience as well as the future longing is structured in the mythogene that is filtered by the synchronic present. Hence, the creative seed of the mythogene combines the diachronic past and future with a synchronic coloring provided by the revelatory present. The mythogene constitutes, therefore, a complementarity between diachronicity and synchronicity for a balanced transition to subsequent creation effected by the blueprint of the Mythogenic Structure. Time and space are cognitive entities construed by man and other creatures, like the webs of a spider, embedded within the boundaries of the speed of light to serve as their perceptual abode. This is the diachronic aquarium into which limited information is filtered from the outside. The barrier of uncertainty allows only one variable at a time to be gathered

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Introduction

from the implicate order, or the superposition, in the synchronic timeless quantum world. Movement velocity creates the cognition of time and, for that matter, space. Beyond the velocity of light there is no spatiotemporality, only the stochastic probabilities of the implicate order and the superposition expressed by Schrödinger’s wave function. Without movement we cannot perceive the explicate order of objects and lifeforms. Without velocity, everything would freeze into nothingness. Indeed, in Sanskrit, Nirvana is the dying out of movement bringing the cessation of time and space. Spatio-temporality is initiated by the Big Bang, which creates the diachronicity of the aquarium of being, and the big crunch squeezes it back into a singularity. Within the aquarium, time is irreversible as each life-form, and for that matter, object in which the Nous, the world soul, is reflected, has a limited span of existence. The lifeforms construe mythogenes emanating from the interstitial aperture between future and past. These are then utilized to form works of art and the mythogenes, which are a-historic structures transmitted through the universal consciousness into mythologies to shape social characters. These mythologies are, in turn, forged by the universal consciousness into the Authentic Domain – the sum total of the endeavors of man and all other life forms. When man has the urge and the revelation to create, he draws mythogenes from the Authentic Domain to form creations and artifacts da capo ad infinitum. We seem, therefore, to be the creative breeding media of the universal consciousness. Our bodies expire but we transmit our genes to our offspring to evolve further and become more complex and viable so that they are able to innovate more durable creations which are also more rewarding spiritually and sensually. The death of our bodies seems, to us, a cruel and arbitrary fate, but is functional to our evolution as our endeavors do not die with our bodies; they are treasured in the Universal Authentic Domain and stored in libraries and museums the world over.28 The attitude towards space and time varies according to personality type and social character. The participant personality type and the Tantalic social character wish to extricate themselves from spatio-temporality through techniques of meditation, quietist prayer, and unio mystica. The Tantalic social character has a negative value judgment against time. The Bedouin, for example, proclaim El Agalé minal shaitan (hurrying is from the devil). We have mentioned that Nirvana, the Indian state of bliss, is the cessation of motion which brings about the disintegration of time and hence, of space. Per contra, the separant personality and Sisyphean social character project mythogenes of power and control onto space and time. Benjamin Franklin said that “time is money” and money, in the form of

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the American dollar, is God. Rudyard Kipling, the poet laureate of the British Empire builders, wrote “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds of distance run.”29 The Rumanian poet, Ruda Stanca rhapsodizes that Buffalo Bill plans the ultimate heist – not of money – of Time. Spatiotemporality is not only anchored on a personality, but is also culturebound. The irreversibility of time within our diachronic aquarium stems from our developmental processes: we eat, digest, and defecate, and not viceversa. We age and the entropy of our bodies shows in our wrinkles, liver spots of our hands, and our stooping posture. Hence, we agree with Hawking that diachronic time cannot be reversible.30 On the other hand, in the quantum world, the superposition, and implicate order, synchronicity reigns. Hence, reversibility is possible, but would be meaningless because synchronicity is a-historic and timeless without a before and after. The link between the diachronic aquarium and the implicate order in synchronicity, is through the universal consciousness reflected in each life form. Mytho-empirically, this universal consciousness is the spirit of God of Genesis,31 hovering over the face of the primeval chaos (waters). It is also the Platonic and neo-Platonic Nous, the world soul, the anima mundi, as well as the Gnostic Spirit of Right, organizing the Mithraic Order and fate of the universe.32 Our individual consciousness, embedded in our bodies, is mirrored in the image of the unitary world consciousness. Our consciousness reaches out by a participant longing and a separant quest towards the synchronic wholeness in transcendence. These longings and quests are motivated by our unknown origins and unfathomable ends. Our brains emit waves which are measured by the electroencephalograph while our memories are probably gestalts of holographic structures.33 In all probability, our minds emit other waves, hitherto undiscovered.34 These reach out to synchronicity and trigger a revelatory process in the implicate order, or a collapse of Schrödinger’s wave function, to form the mythogene which is structured from both the gestalts of separant holographic memories of the past and participant longing of events to materialize in the future. The mythogenes are, as we have already stated, the blueprints for the creation in diachronicity of the explicate order – everything from particles to Mozart’s Requiem. Therefore, in synchronicity there are only potentialities, no objects, no space or time. These attributes are embedded in the implicate order and in the superposition of physical states. When the human consciousness experiences a revelation, which is actually an exposure to the implicate order, a mythogene is structured. This can be ingrained in any medium to effect the creation of a work of art or artifact. The mythogene is the creative link between the transcendence of

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Introduction

synchronicity, yearned for by the longing component of the mythogene, and the here-and-now, represented by the experiential component of the mythogene. Thus the mythogene is the prime bonding agent between our two modes of existence: the diachronic and the synchronic. Claude Lévi-Strauss’ epoch-making studies revealed that myth links nature and culture.35 We shall attempt to walk in his giant footsteps and show that myths bridge history and transcendence and provide ties between subject and object, relating them to man. In the process, we shall coin several new metaphysical concepts and provide some hitherto unexplored angles of the relationship between consciousness and energy matter. In The Myth of Tantalus, we explained how the individual psyche develops from a pantheistic unity until it is ejected, through conflict and deprivation, from its sense of holistic oneness to that of a separate entity.36 In The Violence of Silence, we described how the individual strives towards other humans, flora and fauna, and even inanimate objects, trying to achieve as deep an encounter as he is able.37 In The Promethean Bridge, we examined the link between consciousness and quantum mechanics, tracing the dynamics by which human cognitive processes may collapse the probabilities within a superposition, turning a hazy “soup” of energy into a well-defined quantum state.38 The relationship between the self and its human and physical environment is therefore conceived within the context of a Buberian dialogue. If an I-Thou encounter occurs, a sense of revelation and meaning follows. Without such a dialogue, the surrounding environment becomes menacing, opaque, and absurd. A dialogue may be effected, according to Buber, only if the self exposes itself voluntarily to the other. Upon entering into a dialogic relationship (including an authentic relationship with words, music, or a painting), alternatives to that relationship – to use a quantum mechanical metaphor – collapse. Technically, we have availed ourselves of Niels Bohr’s conceptualization of the complementarity between divergent dualities to describe the possibilities of linkage between man, on the one hand, and energy-matter on the other. Says Bohr: Evidence obtained under different experimental conditions cannot be comprehended within a single picture, but must be regarded as complementary, in the sense that only the totality of the phenomena exhausts the possible information about the objects. Indeed this circumstance presents us with a situation concerning the analysis and synthesis of experience which is entirely new in physics and forces us to replace the ideal of causality by a more general viewpoint, usually termed ‘complementarity.’ The apparently incompatible sorts of information about

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the behavior of the object under examination, which we get by different experimental arrangements, can clearly not be brought into connection with each other in the usual way; they may, as equally essential for an exhaustive account of all experience, be regarded as ‘complementary’ to each other.39

Bohr designed his complementarity principle to apply not only to pairs of quantitive parameters (the measurement of both at the same time barred by the “uncertainty principle”), but also to the bonding of contradictory parameters in biology, psychology and philosophy, and especially ethics. For instance, the complementarity between value judgments and the collapse of alternatives would induce us to see evil after we have made an indeterministic choice to opt for evil. As opposed to that, if we elect to see worth, we shall see worth. If we concentrate on one alternative, the other collapses; if we are set on observing good, we shall tend to ignore evil, and vice versa. The complementarity principle in the field of cultural norms may be envisaged by accepting as a given that every organism needs a system-inbalance to function, even survive. This holds true for artifacts as well as human aggregates. Hence, the Greek cultures stress the need for contextual harmony. The Egyptian Ethos, like the Greek Kosmos, which literally means order, anchors on the need for balance. The most important Greek norm is meden agan, nothing in excess, and the cardinal sin, hubris is divergence from the golden mean. In a similar vein, the Egyptian Goddess Maat is in charge of the all-important cosmic order, which should be maintained as a precondition for the cycles of life. Conformity to group norms is a prime Greek mandate; deviants – both transgressors and outstanding achievers – are ostracized and expelled from the polis. The Jews, on the other hand, are socialized to strive for the absolute. This makes for revelatory insights, but poor team workers. Indeed, the Jews, wherever they have been, have tended to contribute brilliant ideas to their host cultures, but usually do not excel as contextual performers. The viability of a culture depends on a complementarity between the revelatory virtuoso, spurred by directional insight, and the contextual performers, who integrate the ideas into a durable system-in-balance. Bohr meant the complementarity principle to better serve philosophy than Aristotelian causality, scholastic coincidentia oppositorium, and Hegelian dialectics. We shall elucidate our own conception of how the complementarity principle actually effects the linkage between divergent concepts, parameters, and objects.

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Introduction

The link between consciousness and the objective world was masterfully metaphorized in the following Hassidic tale, as told by S. Y. Agnon to Gershom Scholem: When the Ba’al Shem Tov had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer, and what he set out to perform was done. When a generation later the Maggid of Meseritz was faced with the same task he would go to the same place in the woods and say, “We can no longer light the fire, but we can still speak the prayers.” And what he wanted done became reality. Again, a generation later Rabi Moshe Leib of Sassov had to perform this task. And he too went to the woods and said, “We can no longer light the fire, nor do we know the secret meditations belonging to the prayer, but we do know the place in the woods to which it all belongs and that must be sufficient.” And sufficient it was. But when another generation had passed and Rabi Israel of Rishin was called on to perform the task, he sat down in his golden chair in his castle and said, “We cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayers, we do not know the place, but we can tell the story of how it was done.” The storyteller adds, the story which he told, had the same effect as the other three.40

Scholem’s interpretation of this Hassidic tale protrays the decay of the Hassidic movement and the transformation of its values.41 Our interpretation is different. We hold that the Ba’al Shem Tov (the Besht), the charismatic founder of the Hassidic movement, taught that the optimal performance of man’s tasks in this world is a combination of action, meditative prayer, and spiritual concentration. Indeed, the Besht, the “doer,” integrates his thoughts with the overt action of the kindling of the fire thus brining about the performance of the task. The quietist, inner-directed Maggid of Mesertiz does not act, but prays. The Besht reaches out to the object, whereas the Maggid focuses on his thoughts and transforms them into a solipsistic reality all his own. The Rabi of Sassov anchors his efforts on a spatial location to perform the task. The Rabi of Rishin has no action, no spiritual concentration, and no location. All he has is a story, a mythical account which generates the task. This Hassidic tale highlights the subject of our present work: the relationship between generative myths and the realm of living and existence. The link between subject and object remains one of the single most relevant psycho-philosophical problems from time immemorial to the present day. Salomon Maimon, the disciple of Kant, metaphorically stated that, “To find a passage from the external world to the mental world is more important than to find a way to East India, no matter what statesmen may say.” Our concern, nonetheless, is more pragmatic; we wish to

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understand how the mental revelation of an Archimedean “eureka” is structured into an objective creation. We hypothesize that Mythogenic Structures effect this creative linkage. We propose to dwell more extensively on this hypothesis. Andrew Lang, a pioneering student of mythology, stated towards the end of the nineteenth century that myths are not just fairy tales to frighten young children into eating their porridge. Myths are rather casual explanations of phenomena which take place in historical reality. He, therefore, denoted mythology as “proto-science.”42 Freud claims “Myths are the distorted vestiges of the wish-fulfillment fantasies of whole nations … the age-long dreams of young humanity.”43 Raising his intra-psychic interpretation of dreams on to the group level, Freud states that the myth is an expression of the tribe’s “social character,” an aggregate of wishes and visions of a nation or society. Surely, the myth of the Flood, for instance, was not merely wish fulfillment, but a projection of real experiences of disastrous inundations, especially in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Myths are therefore also a projection of experiences and spectacular events undergone by a group, before written history in ille tempore. Bachofen writes, “The mythical tradition may be taken as a faithful reflection of life in those times in which historical antiquity is rooted. It is a manifestation of primordial thinking, an immediate historical revelation and, consequently, a very reliable source.”44 Eliade further claims that since myths reflect an occurrence of events on a high level of abstraction, they also reveal principles, designs, and underlying events. He writes: The myth discloses the eventful creation of the world and of man, and at the same time the principles which govern the cosmic process and human existence. … The myths succeed each other and articulate themselves into a sacred history, which is continuously recovered in the life of the community as well as in the existence of each individual. … What happened in the beginning describes at once both the original perfection and the destiny of each individual.45

This brings us to Jung, who regards myths not only as means of individual psychic expression, but also as the archetypal contents of the “collective human unconsciousness.”46 Myths are a projection of wishes and experiences both on the individual and group levels. We explicated this in Salvation Through the Gutters as follows: Our methodological anchor is the conception of myths as projections of personal history. The individual is aware of his personality as the sole existential entity in his cognition. This awareness of existence is the only epistemological reality. Myths cannot, therefore, be divorced from the

16

Introduction human personality. Whatever happened to us in the amnestic years and even later is projected onto our theory of the creation of the universe, magic, and other human beings. The events that happened in the highly receptive amnestic years have been recorded and stored by the human brain. Events that happened after the amnestic years may be recalled cognitively, but whatever happened within these first years of life is recalled, inter alia, by myths of cosmogony. Myths as personal history may therefore be regarded as the account of some crucial developmental stages in the formative years. Moreover, human development, in the early formative years, passes in an accelerated manner through the evolutionary phases of the species.47

Consequently, myths are also a projection of the development of the species as inherent in the development of the individual. Interestingly, the conception of myths as a projection of personal history may be inferred from the Apocalypse of Baruch, which states “Every man is the Adam of his own soul.”48 One might interpret in this expression that every human being experiences Original Sin. Karl Abraham expressed this view as early as 1925 in Character Formation on the Genital Level of Libido Development: In the two phases of development … we are able to recognize archaic types of character-formation. They represent in the life of the individual recapitulation of primitive states that the human race has passed through at certain stages of its development. Hence, in general, in biology, we find the rule holding good that the individual repeats, in an abbreviated form, the history of his ancestors. Accordingly, in normal circumstances, the individual will traverse those early stages of character formation in a relatively short space of time.49

Hence, the myth of the Fall of Man is the projection of a stage of development of the individual and, at the same time, a universal human developmental experience. Myths become archetypal projections of human experience only when they are widespread. The more common a developmental experience, the greater its chances of becoming a mythical projection. The converse is also true: the more widespread the myth, the higher the chance that it is a projection of a widespread, or even universal, development. The universality of the myth of the Fall of Man, for example, points to a corresponding developmental phase of the separation of the individual self from the unified whole of early orality, which is indeed experienced by every human being. We hold, therefore, that myths structure meanings of human behavior, and serve as motivation and prime movers for both individuals and groups. As myths are projected models of human behavior on all levels, they are

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records of past experience, as well as structures for future longings and goals. Myths are also expressions of overt behavior, of covert dynamics, of the here-and-now, and of transcendence. The dimensions of myths may also greatly vary, from micro-myths, like names of persons and places, which express meaningful experiences or quests, to meta-myths such as the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus. Myths vary with time and place and every society and culture has its own indigenous mythology. Myths move in time from sacred myths told before recorded history to modern myths which include the master detectives Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and John Le Carré’s Smiley, or Superman who implements the dreams of the omnipotence among the downtrodden, henpecked inhabitants of Metropolis. Myths can also relate to individuals, such as the offering of Isaac and Iphigenia, signifying the sacrificial enmeshing of the young within the normative system of society. There are group myths, such as the adventures of the Olympian Gods and the tribal exploits of the German Aesir. The Nazi movement may indeed be studied as having been triggered and sustained by a collective myth.50 We tread in the giant footsteps of Claude Lévi Strauss, who claimed that myths are a connecting structure between divergent polarities of nature and culture, like the raw and the cooked.51 We, however, attribute wider and deeper functions to mythology. Myths as structures function, as Piaget explains: As a system of transformations characterized by the laws of this system [in contradistinction to the attributes of its individual components], the system is preserved and enriched by the actions of these transformations, but they do not lead to outright components, which are outside the [structured system]. In short, a structure is characterized by holism, transformation, and self-regulation.52

Myths, as holistic, self-regulating structures that function regardless of their historical veracity, are therefore a-historical. Moses and the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, which have no independent corroboration outside the Bible, generated monotheistic Judaism (still strong today, irrespective of whether Moses actually existed or not). We are also told that myths link subject and object, individual and society, consciousness and matter, revelation and creativity, and history and transcendence. These links function in a feedback cycle, since man projects myths, for instance, on to metaphysics that are structured into religion, which in turn feeds individuals’ faith. The creative myth, or in our denotation, the Mythogenic Structure, is not only a self-regulating mechanism, but also self-recharging and dynamic. Man turns the myths that refuel him into role models,

18

Introduction

creative muses, ideologies and religions. Hence, myths are our prime movers, which lift us by our own bootstraps à la Baron Münchausen, powered as a self-energizing perpetuum mobilae. Our interest in mythology arose during almost three decades of interest in the theory and practice of labeling. When someone is stigmatized as a homosexual, a criminal, or a madman, the facts that the homosexual is also a good pianist, the criminal has a sense of humor, or the madman has a good heart, melt into the halo effects of the stereotypes of a “other,” and the outsider, is just one instance of the omnipotence of structure. Of special importance to this context is Piaget’s exposition on structures common to both psychology and physics.53 Piaget also assures us that children start thinking in structures. This might account for the fact that the most basic structures are ingrained in us in our oral phase of development, together with the acquisition of our first mother tongue. Structures are therefore independent entities with internal transformations; yet these transformations do not change the structure because its self-regulation keeps the structure intact. It is important to note that once the structure is formed, we become accustomed to it through feedback processes. The longer one retains a structure, the greater the structure becomes normalized, mythologized, and cherished through cognitive dissonances. Established structures lend security, familiarity, and confidence, hence normative upheavals and ideational revolutions are painful and relatively rare. The Mythogenic Structure is the connecting agent between the ani consciousness and energy-matter that is formed into a model of a phenomenon to be realized subsequently as an act of creation. The durability and longevity of Mythogenic Structures are subject to natural selection and functional adaptability. In this domain, as in so many other Sisyphean dynamics of creation and entropy, Darwinian evolution reigns supreme.54 Once the Mythogenic Structure has been generated by projected experiences and yearnings, forming a self-regulating configuration, it has a life of its own; thus a mythogene is a-historic. As we have stated, there is no independent evidence, outside of the Bible, for the existence of Moses or the Exodus. A study by an American archeologist even claims that all the events and personalities recounted in the first ten books of the Old Testament have no historical veracity.55 Hence Moses, as well as Saul, David, and Solomon, are fictional characters. This notion is unimportant to our present context. The Mythogenic Structure obeys W. I. Thomas’ basic theorem of social processes, according to which if man defines a situation as real, it becomes real in its consequences. Therefore, if the mythogene is

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projected, structured, and legitimized by a given group, it motivates man to generate cultural patterns by a process of revelation and creativity. Lévi-Strauss describes how the mythic structure links nature and culture together; we shall also try to show how Mythogenic Structures are generated, how they grow, and how they decline. Indeed, mythogenes are generated, developed, and destroyed in a manner distinct from the growth and decline of historical entities. Leon Festinger demonstrates how belief in prophets has increased just when their historical prophesies failed.56 Likewise, the followers of Christ began serious proselytizing only after his crucifixion, and of the followers of Shabbetai Zevi, a seventeenth-century self-proclaimed Jewish Messiah, began to proselytize his creed only after he converted to Islam. The Mythogenic Structure moves itself, and us (its creators) in a feedback cycle of virtual reality. When we impute to the feedback cycle historical veracity and insist on enacting it in our real lives, we court disaster. The numerous Christs, Napoleons, and Elvis Presleys in insane asylums are individual examples of the deranging effects of historicizing myths, whereas the Nazi revival of the Elder Eddas and the Niebelungen Ring are actually catastrophic instances on the group level of imputing historical veracity to myths. Our first step in the study of mythogenes is to explore their role in the development of the human personality.

The Two Vectors We propose to describe here the two opposing vectors which form the core of our personality theory. These vectors are “participation” and “separation.” We define participation as the identification of the self with a person, with an object, a life-form, or with a symbol outside the self. In the participation process the self strives to lose its separate identity by fusion with external entities: another person, life form, object, or symbol. Separation, the opposite vector, is the self’s effort to sever and differentiate itself from its surrounding life forms and objects. These opposing vectors of participation and separation, the main axis of our theory, are co-developed with three major developmental phases. The first process of separation is birth: an abrupt propulsion from cushioned self-sufficiency in the womb to the strife and struggle of outside life. Birth represents a major crisis and is undoubtedly, recorded by the newborn’s psyche. This crisis accompanies further physical pressures that birth imposes on the cranium and may have resultant effects on various layers of the brain.

20

Introduction

We build our premises on these universal separation effects of birth. These effects, in turn, initiate the opposite vector of participation, which is a directional driving force harnessing a diverse assortment of psychic energy towards a union with objects, life forms, or symbols. The newborn is physiologically and psychologically capable of recording these birthincidental crises, is traumatized by them, and is driven into a lifelong quest for congruity and unification.57 The second process of separation is the crystallization of an individual self through the molding of the ego-boundary. The infant shrieks and kicks his way into the world, but still feels part of his surroundings. This holistic bliss is gradually destroyed, however, by the harsh realities of hunger, thirst, discomfort, physical violence, and the presence of hard objects in his surroundings. This contentedness is further destroyed by a mother who is mostly loving, but sometimes nagging, apathetic, hysterical, overprotective, or even rejecting. These factors push the infant to form a separate identity, to leave the common fold of unity with his environment and to crystallize an “I.” At this point, the individual self knows that it is not part of its surroundings but a separate entity: the self is not in consonance with his surroundings but rather against it. This realization of a separate self, resulting from a coerced departure from the security of engulfing togetherness, is registered by the developing psyche as a Fall from Grace. The process of separation continues in full force, as a corollary of socialization, until post-adolescence. In this, the third developmental phase, the self adjusts to the mandates of the normative systems of society. The making of a responsible person, or a stable human being, is achieved through constant indoctrination of various socialization agents: family, school, church, etc. Using some rigorous rites of passage, these socialization agents convey the harsh realities of life, urging the child to grow up. The desire to overcome the separating and dividing pressures never leaves the human individual. The endeavor to partake in a unifying whole is always present and takes many forms; if one avenue towards its realization becomes blocked, it surges out through another channel. The various pressures toward separation in each developmental phase can be traced. The newborn registers each stimulus as a disturbance that must be overcome. Before and after the separate self crystallizes, the various demands of the newborn’s mother and others around him are also perceived as disquieting events, which the self must learn to cope with and accept. Later on, the various demands of the socialization agents to fit within the boundaries of the normative system and so to gain social identity and responsibility, serve as the semi-final or final separating

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pressures. After this period, the individual is on his own, ontologically lonely, desperately trying to regain the togetherness of his lost fold. In this uphill battle, the individual may choose both legitimate and illegitimate paths, acceptable or deviant avenues. After the primary biological separation of birth, the processes of separation and the ensuing developmental stages are affected by the deprivational interaction of the self with its surrounding objects. Following birth, the self-preservation instinct protects this new creature from extinction by inducing it to cry out for food and comfort. Yet, the crystallization of the separate “I” is effected by the interaction with a nipple that does not release milk, and a mother who does not ease all pain or alleviate all discomfort.58 In other words, if neonates had all their needs immediately gratified, they would not emerge from the feeling of unity with their surroundings. This feeling characterizes early orality, and marks the infant’s first year of life. Thus, the release of tension through the satisfaction of the biological needs is not the separating agent; rather it is the conflictual interaction with a depriving object that serves as the separating agent. Consequently, the primary separation of the self is not a corollary of instinctual need satisfaction, but an interactional phenomenon.

Isaac and Iphigenia Similarly, we claim that social separation is not effected, as Sigmund Freud59 and Erikson60 postulated, by psychosexual developmental phases, but rather by conflictual normative indoctrination, and by deprivational socialization within the family. These factors are exemplified by the numerous rites of passage studied by anthropologists, and by the lonely burdens of responsibility imposed on post-adolescents in every human society, in order to prepare them for the vicissitudes of adult life.61 In most cultures the father, or his surrogate, is the doctrinaire figure, playing an instrumental role in imposing norms and duties on his sons and daughters, thus preparing them for their social roles. We denote a father's normative impositions on his son as the Isaac Syndrome.62 The initial victimization of the child at the oral stage of development is maternal; a process that blocks the free expression of the child’s incestuous desires. The second victimization is paternal, coercing the child into the normative system of society. This coercive and normative victimization is usually backed by the absolute authority of God, the Fatherland, or a secular political deity. As in the model of the Offering of Isaac, there is usually a symbolic relationship between the stern, doctrinaire father and a metaphysical source of absolute authority. It is important to note that the

22

Introduction

continued victimization of the child by his parents, from early orality onwards, is an integral part of the developmental socializing separation process. Paternal victimization leads to the separant insertion of the pubescent individual into a normative pigeonhole, sanctioned by society. The mother, however, serves as a symbol of grace. She represents carefree, participant longing for the forgiveness and irresponsibility of children within the family fold, before they are harnessed to the normative burdens of society. In some tribes, rites of passage from childhood to puberty, such as circumcision, are presided over by the elders, while mothers join in the wailing of their sons.63 A mythological corroboration of the mother as the image of grace in the eyes of her pubescent son is found in the angel who orders Abraham not to slaughter Isaac. In the iconography of the Offering of Isaac,64 the angel is invariably depicted as female. It would not be far-fetched, therefore, to regard the female angel as a representation of Isaac’s mother, Sarah. The Isaac Syndrome represents the normative paternal aggression of fathers, aimed at their sons.65 The essence of the myth of the Offering of Isaac, however, lies in the sacrificial boundaries of the normative systems of society. All normative social indoctrination involves, to a varying degree, curbing the well-being and freedom of the pubescent for the benefit of the collective. Literature abounds with examples of the sacrificial coercion of children into the carnivorous exigencies of the normative system. Franz Kafka’s letters to his father reek with the agonies of a son abused by his father in the name of bourgeois morality.66. Kafka’s relationship with his father was the most likely inspiration for his portrayal of Mr. Samsa, the petit bourgeois father in The Metamorphosis,67 who degrades his misfit son in order to ingrain in him shame and fear of social norms. Similarly, in his play The Awakening of Spring, Frank Wedekind portrays a father who justifies committing his son to a notorious institution for juvenile delinquents. The father is convinced that the institution stresses and enhances Christian thought and logic.68 The boy’s mother prays for grace and forgiveness, as in the archetypal image of the mother in the iconography of Isaac’s Offering. The mother laments that her son, in essence a good boy, is bound to become a hardened criminal in the institution. Stern paternal judgment prevails, however, and the boy, Melchior, is confined to the institution for the heinous crime of having sex with a girl. Wedekind’s play focuses on the sacrificial coercion of the parents, mainly on the suppression of sexual manifestations in the name of social propriety, morality, and religion.

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Paternal sanctions and raging admonitions burst forth from Francis Bacon’s portrait Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (the Screaming Pope series).69 In this painting, Bacon takes Velasquez’s serene portrait of Pope Innocent X, seated in full regalia on his throne, and covers it with the transparent projection of a frozen scream. The Pope’s mouth is wide open, and it seems to emit shrieks of horror, howling curses, and shouts of damnation. Could these represent the howls of Bacon’s authoritarian father when he learned that his adolescent son was a transvestite? By way of free association we may also recall the televised interviews with Pope John Paul II whose benign face, that of a good-natured Polish peasant, became hard and stern whenever he reconfirmed the Church’s proscriptions of married priests, abortions, and homosexuality. Indeed, sex remains one of the normative strongholds of the Church, perhaps because of the Church’s programming of the manifestation of humanity’s sexual roles. The persistent proscription of free expression of sexuality, especially between consenting homosexual adults, induced John Money to label official authorities, both secular and religious, as sexual dictatorships hunting sexual heretics.70 Money’s label is an extension of the Isaac Syndrome to societies and collectives, where the authoritarian figure of Abraham permeates the power structures of society and religion. Mothers often warn their children when they are being naughty, “Wait till Daddy comes home and I’ll tell him what you were up to today.” By saying this, the mother implies that she does not wield the normative rod; rather it is the role of the authoritarian figure in the family, the father, to impose due sanctions. The doctrinaire role of the father is equally directed toward sons and daughters. The contents of social norms imposed by parental authority vary, however, with the sex of the child. In most patriarchal societies, the son is coerced to undertake the burden of social responsibility, whereas the daughter is harnessed into her feminine roles of marriage, childbearing, and household duties. A partial feminine counterpart to the sacrificial rites of passage inherent in the Isaac Syndrome may be inferred from the Greek myth of Demeter and Koré. Zeus, Koré’s father, was instrumental in her abduction, ejecting his daughter from the family fold and the protection of her mother, delivering her to his hellish brother, Hades.71 The implication here is that Koré was taken away from the care of her mother, through the devices of her father, who exposed her to the trials of matrimonial servitude to her husband. The experience was registered by the pubescent Koré as coercive and infernal. Yet, this is the social essence of the betrothals of daughters throughout most of history, lingering in traditional

24

Introduction

societies today. Fathers give their daughters away in marriage to the appropriate husband, who is mainly chosen according to their father's political calculations, social expectations, and economic needs. The most striking feminine parallel to the Isaac Syndrome, both in its gory sacrificial details and profound socio-normative implications, is seen in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, as dramatized by Euripides. In the play, Iphigenia was to be sacrificed to the Gods by her father, Agamemnon, for the glory of Greece, his fatherland with the tell-tale implications for the Isaac Syndrome. The authoritarian agency of her father served the exigencies of socio-religious commands, in the same way that the normative authority of Abraham was an extension of Divinity. Unlike Abraham, however, who never doubts God’s commands, Agamemnon wavers, and rages against the need to sacrifice his daughter for the glory of the Greek army and the honor of Hellenic society. The divergence between the two myths stems from differences between the Judaic and Greek conceptions of Divine authority. For Abraham, God’s commands were the epitome of justice, neither doubted, nor questioned, whereas the anthropomorphic Greek Gods made no pretence of being just. In the case of Iphigenia, the Greeks knew that their Gods were the arbiters of necessity and fate, the prime movers of the Greek religious and normative systems. Despite these differences, the outcome was the same: Isaac and Iphigenia were to be sacrificed to the Divine projections of socio-normative mandates. According to the Midrash, the traditional and mythological interpretation of the Bible, Isaac runs joyfully to the altar and binds himself to it.72 Iphigenia, however, was not so willing a victim. In one of the most shattering monologues in drama, she pleads with Agamemnon: Had I the voice of Orpheus, O my father, If I could sing so that the rocks would move, If I had words to win the hearts of all, I would have used them; I have only tears. See, I have brought them! They are all my power, I clasp your knees, I am your suppliant now, I, your own child, my mother bore me to you. O, kill me not untimely! The sun is sweet! Why will you send me into the dark grave? I was the first to sit upon your knee, The first to call you father.73

Eventually, however, she accepts her fate and goes to the altar, patriotically announcing, “Bid my father come and touch the altar, which will this day bring victory and salvation unto Greece.”74 Like Sarah,

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Isaac's mother, in the myth of the Offering of Isaac, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia’s mother, is the figure of grace. Clytemnestra condemns paternal cruelty as expressed in the Divine mandate to sacrifice her daughter for the glory of Greece. The father presides over the vicissitudes of social separation, the cruel rites of passage from childhood to adulthood, the harsh coercion into the delimiting social norms, and the sacrificial horrors of the Isaac and Iphigenia syndromes. These acts induce children of both sexes to long for the cushioned forgiveness and lenient protection of their mother within the family fold. For the homosexual Marcel Proust, this longing became so intense that he shut himself in a padded, womb-like room writing volume after volume, idealizing his beloved mother. For the heterosexual Albert Camus his great love for his mother may have turned into a longing for the grace of womanhood in general, rather than for a specific woman. Thus, Camus undertook a lifelong quest in search of the tender friendship of women.75 It is possible that the chevaliers’ adoration of women and the troubadours’ odes to ladies’ graces during the Middle Ages, were spurred by the insane trails of the hordes of cross-bearing warriors sacrificed to the waging of impossible wars by a stern absolutist God. The graceful, tender image of the mother-woman was the vision of everything that had been warm and merciful back home, in stark contrast to the squalor and death, which were ordained by a graceless, unforgiving, and uncompromising father-God. In the original Hebrew of the Bible, as well as in Aramaic and Syriac, the word “grace” is hessed, which also means “incestuous,” or “sinful.”76 This demonstrates, etymologically at least, that the son’s longing for his mother’s grace appears to have sexual and incestuous undertones. This longing, of course, is a corollary of the suppressed, incestuous desire of the son for his mother at the oral stage, and the relation of this suppressed desire to the subconscious. Primarily, this might explain the boys’ attraction to girls who remind them, directly or symbolically, of their mother, since the amatory and sexual longing for their mothers is blocked by the deep internalized prohibition of their very early incestuous desires. The parallel attraction of daughters to men that resemble their fathers might also be related to the dynamics of complementarity. The pubescent daughter, through identification with her mother, is attracted to a complementary authoritarian figure linked to the normativeness of the father. Of course, these relationships vary in families in which the father is soft and benign, while the mother is harsh and authoritarian. The various combinations of identifications and permutations of complementary points

26

Introduction

between parents and children are virtually endless, and tracing their effects on the choice of sexual partners is outside the scope of the present work.

The Tantalus Ratio We conceived of our participation vector as the individual’s quest at every particular moment in his life to revert to an earlier developmental phase – to the irresponsibility of pre-puberty, to the grace of the mother and the protection of the family fold, to the omnipresence of early orality, and to the pre-natal bliss of non-being. This pull is countered by the instinctual and deprivational interaction vectors of separation, which always have the upper hand, except in death. Yet, the quest for participatory non-being is ever present; we tend to agree with the hypothesis that states that if man possessed a special master-switch which could end his life at will, he would be bound to press it at one time or another. While the quest for participation manifests itself in numerous sublimatory substitutes – both institutionalized and deviant – actual participation is unattainable by definition. Proust could sensitively revive a lost childhood and a graceful mother through the hazy memories triggered by the taste of a Madeleine cookie, but even he could not recapture the actual sensations of things past. We are forever searching for our lost childhood, for our narcissistic paradise, but no one can actually revert to pre-puberty, reconstruct the omnipresence of early orality, or revive the sensation of blissful suspended animation in the amniotic fluid of the uterus. Participation is a fata morgana, shining hazily before our craving eyes, but ever receding and never achieved. Countering separation vectors, both instinctual and interactive, augment the impossible objective of participation. At any given moment of our lives, there is a disjuncture, a gap between our desire for participation and our subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims. We denote this gap the “Tantalus Ratio,” after the Olympian Demigod who had fruit whirled out of his reach by a gust of wind whenever he tried to reach it. If he bent down to drink from a seemingly fresh and sparkling stream of water, he discovered it to be black mud. If he succeeded in scooping up some water in his palm, it dripped through his fingers before he could cool his parched lips. The Tantalus Ratio creates a strain, a tension between the longing for participation and the distancing from it, as perceived by the individual. The intensity of this strain is determined by the factors comprising the Tantalus Ratio, the motivating force underlying the individual's actions. Based on a rather low level of abstraction, we might imagine this

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tantalizing strain as the rabbit lure moving in front of racing dogs, or as the proverbial carrot dangling before a donkey’s nose. This tantalizing strain is inherently different from the opposing vectors that comprise the Tantalus Ratio. Generated within the synaptic junctions of these opposing vectors, this strain is released by the individual’s motivational movement towards some participatory goals or towards their sublimated alternatives. In other words, the participatory and separating vectors provide the crude psychic energy, whereas the Tantalus Ratio and the strain it generates provide the motivational directions for the individual's actual behavior. This tantalizing strain may be either conscious or unconscious, and its operation is checked and regulated by the norms acquired by various internal personality mechanisms. Our hypothesis is that the psychic bases that underlie these mechanisms are generated by the anxieties registered at each consecutive stage of separation. Since each developmental stage, from birth onwards, is experienced by the individual as a painful separation accompanied by deprivational interaction, the personality clings to its present stability, in reaction to developmental change for the worse. This leads to a more radical separateness. The mechanisms are “the Devil I know” defenses, which cause the personality to adhere to stable states as lesser evils. Since the actual regression to previous developmental stages is a practical impossibility, all the techniques of participation, both institutionalized and deviant, cannot quench the intense longing for participation, which is fueled by the individual’s memories of his earlier participatory developmental stages. Therefore, the Tantalus Ratio produces formidable energies, which are augmented and kindled by the impossibility of slaking the individual’s thirst for participation. The essence of this premise is that the Tantalus Ratio is the most powerful at the outset of life, decreasing in potency with each developmental stage, until it wanes in old age. The strength of the Tantalus Ratio is primarily related to the enormity of the separating forces of early childhood, which cause the participation vectors to muster contrary pressures of corresponding potency. Second, the closeness in time of the separating developmental events makes for vivid memories and sharply focused images of the lost participatory bliss. The child’s frantic efforts to regain his lost bliss are therefore marked by a desperate surge of power aimed at reversing the raw grief of the recent developmental calamity. These efforts are not yet mellowed and weakened by the sad knowledge, brought about by experience, that direct participatory reversals are impossible. The separation of birth, which is registered by the neonate as a catastrophe, is marked by frantic efforts to survive.77 The mouth-ego of the

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Introduction

infant constantly searches for a nipple, or anything that would provide nourishment. This factor, together with the other enormous pressures of growth at this hectic stage of development, leads to the formation of the biological vectors of separation, which are at the height of their potency. Yet, this is also the stage at which the neonate experiences the strongest craving to return to his mother’s womb, from which he was so brutally expelled. This craving is in keeping with what Ernest Schachtel denoted as the law of embeddedness.78 The law states that the more complete the state of embeddedness of the organism, the less the organism wishes to stir from a state of quiescent equilibrium in relation to the environment.79. In our terms, it means that the more violent the separating disturbance is, the more powerful the corresponding struggle for participation becomes. What can be more violent than the separating expulsion of birth? Indeed, we claim that what John Bowlby has denoted as the “instinct of clinging” of the primate to its mother, as well as the less corporeal attachment of the human infant to his mother or surrogate, can be linked to the neonate’s desire to regain physical union with his mother in her womb.80 This instinct may provide the motive underlying the clinging and attachment behavior of both primate and human infants, apart from the functional desire of the young to be close to the source of their nourishment and protection.81 The second major phase of separation, the coagulation of the distinct “I,” is marked by the introduction of the deprivational interaction with an object into the battling forces of the Tantalus Ratio. At the oral stage, these objects are the mother, the breast, and the nipple. The ego-boundary, which separates the self from the totality of early orality, is nothing other than scar tissue that surrounds the individual self as a result of its deprivational interaction with the surrounding objects. We have relied elsewhere on the oralist offshoot of psychoanalysis to describe the mouth-ego of early orality as aiming to empty the objectmother’s breast, and hence to destroy the non-obliging object (mother).82

The Fixation of Personality Types Personality traits and types center on the key concept of “fixation,” which is undoubtedly Freudian in origin. Unfortunately, neither Freud nor his disciples sufficiently clarified the mechanisms of fixation for the uninitiated outsiders, although it is a central concept in psychoanalytic theory and practice. According to the original Freudian formulation, psychosexual energy is directed toward the erogenous zones that also represent the major psychosexual development phases.83 When parents, or

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their surrogates, over-indulge or severely deprive an infant at any given developmental phase, the infant musters a relatively large amount of psychosexual energy in an effort to overcome the frustration generated. In addition, the infant will also harness these energies to create alternative, defensive outlets, which are normal manifestations of psychosexual energy that has been blocked. Consequently, at any developmental phase, the growth processes may be arrested or injured, since the psychosexual energies have been expended to erect defenses against the conflictual interaction with the parents, instead of building the infant’s personality. Freud himself was not clear as to the nature of fixation and took much for granted, claiming: The unconscious knows no time limit. The most important, as well as the most peculiar, character of psychic fixation consists in the fact that all impressions are, on the one hand, retained in the same form as they were received, and also in the forms that they have assumed in their further development. This state of affairs cannot be elucidated by any comparison from any other sphere. By virtue of this theory, every former state of the memory content may thus be restored, even though all original relations have long been replaced by newer ones.84

The Freudian unconscious psyche seems to be the perfect database that stores all impressions, with all their possible past and future interactions in a timeless progression. Fixation functions as a type of anchor on a given context of these impressions, and yet Freud does not explain how this anchoring comes about. We therefore propose an explanation based on our exposition of the developmental phases of the personality core.85 If the transition from one developmental phase to the next is more painful at a given developmental phase than the average harshness perceived by the individual’s own experience, a rupture or developmental wound is formed, which psychic energies rush to mend. To be more precise, we envisage the developmental processes as an interaction between the separating forces of growth and the participating urge to revert to an earlier developmental phase. The energy resulting from the dynamic interplay between these vectors is the Tantalus Ratio. However, if the separating effects of the deprivational interaction are too intense or violent at any given time, the developmental process is temporarily disconnected. The participation vector and the energies of the Tantalus Ratio repair the injury by covering it with developmental scar tissue, not unlike the scar on a wound. Yet the wound and the tender layers of scar tissue are still exposed to conflict and more pressure, as the deprivational interaction of the nascent ego with its surroundings is a continuous

30

Introduction

process. Consequently, the ever-thickening layers of scar tissue, which result from the traumatic fixation, are more like a corn on a toe. The psychic energy moves around the traumatized developmental scar, covering it with excessive mental imprints, very much like the whorls and loops of the skin texture of a corn. The corn is painful, not only because of the pressure, but because the excessive scar tissue makes the whole area more vulnerable, and sensitive. This metaphor illustrates the nature of fixation. It is the combined outcome of the traumatizing injury and the excessive and frantic patching of developmental scar tissue layers by the psychic energies of the Tantalus Ratio; the harsher the trauma, the thicker the defensive layers of the protective scar tissue. The separate ego emerges from non-differentiated early orality, through its deprivational interaction with the mother’s breast and surrounding objects. The resulting boundary around the self is another example of the developmental experience, which is more conspicuous, more sensitive, and consequently, more vulnerable than the rest of the developmental texture of the personality. Our conceptualization of fixation, as distinct from the Freudian usage, is not related to pathological regressions, but to the crystallization of character traits and personality types. We further hold that regression is not conditioned by fixation, but is rather the quest of a defensive flight to an earlier developmental phase, the longing for which is ever present in the participation vector of our personality core. When separating pressures of growth disturb the dynamic balance of the Tantalus Ratio, or when the individual’s interpersonal relationships suffer a disrupting blow, the counter-pressures of released participation catapult the individual to visions of pre-pubic havens and blissful dreams of early orality. Fixation is, therefore, a developmental dam, that traps both the disrupting blows of traumatizing interaction and the countering defenses of the Tantalus Ratio. The anchoring of personality traits onto the fixation is the result of this massive concentration of painful experiences and the heaping of defenses in frantic disarray. We only become aware, for instance, of a hand or a tooth when they are painful. In much the same way, a blow to a bruise is much more painful than a similar blow to a healthy part of the body. Consequently, the severity of fixation relates to the magnitude of the developmental trauma and to the corresponding intensity of defenses mustered by the Tantalus Ratio.

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The Sisyphean and the Tantalic Birth is undoubtedly an explosive event, whose archetype in mythology is the act of creation itself. Yet this colossal event is not registered by a separate awareness. A separate self-image emerges from a non-differentiated mass only in later orality, when the I is confronted by the surrounding objects. This process is the baseline from which the self emerges from the total being of early orality, and the non-self defines the circumference of the self. This outcome is an existential revolution, registered by the individual as a separating catastrophe. We propose, therefore, a personality typology anchored on this developmental dichotomy of pre- and post-differentiation of the self. This molding process is expressed in the nature and severity of the fixation and determines, in turn, the placement of a given individual on the personality type continuum. However, the personality types themselves are fixated by a chronology of development, i.e., whether the fixating trauma occurred before or after the separation of the self. We denote a personality fixated before the formation of the self as a “participant-Tantalic personality” type, after the mythical Greek Demigod, Tantalus, whose punishment we have already described. If the traumas fixate the personality after the crystallization of the self, the “separant-Sisyphean personality” type is bound to emerge. The Sisyphean personality type relates to the mythical Greek Demigod, Sisyphus, condemned to roll a stone to the top of a hill. Whenever he neared the summit, the stone would roll down and Sisyphus had to start again. The Tantalic personality type is inward-bound, ever visualizing and longing for the all-inclusive early orality, while the Sisyphean personality type fixated at later orality, is ever entangled with the vicissitude of an object. The separant-Sisyphus anchors on the interrelationship with an object, whereas the participant-Tantalus seeks the blissful mystical union. These concepts are the passions kindling the vectors of our personality types. Sisyphus’ stone-object, however, keeps rolling downhill and Tantalus’ mystical fruit incessantly recedes before his eyes. This captures the essence and the irony of the Tantalus Ratio; its strength is measured by unachieved aims, because its fulfillment is not only impossible, but also tantamount to impotence.

The Ani, Atzmi, Ity and the Self The concept of the self is anchored on consistency: an individual feels and defines the same self from the moment the separate awareness coagulates, until death. The exceptions to the principles of consistency and

32

Introduction

continuity are cases of madness or temporary dissolution or weakening of the self in extreme cases of hallucinations or mystical experiences. The self, therefore, is the consistent and continuous inner sameness of the individual vis-à-vis his environment. The “inner sameness” element of our definition has, no doubt, an Eriksonian flavor to it.86 For Erikson, “ego identity” is the meaning of this inner sameness to others, whereas for us, the self is the structured barrier between the separate individual as conceived of by the individual himself, and flora, fauna, and inanimate objects that are excluded from the confines of this barrier. We denote the participant core of the self with the Hebrew word ani. The etymological meaning of ani is “I”, but in the Kabbalist doctrine, ani and ain (“nothingness”), which have the same Hebrew letters but in a different order, are interchangeable and synonymous. Consequently, the ani, which longs for participant non-being, is the Tantalic, objectless component of the self. We denote the interactive object-related component of the self with the Hebrew word atzmi, which may be translated into English as “myself.” Its root, however, is etzem, “object,” in Hebrew, making it appropriate for its definitional task. The self is the essence that defines its being both for itself and for others. The atzmi is the interactive, relational self that reaches outward towards the object, whereas the ani transcends spatio-temporality and reaches inwards towards the predifferentiated unity. It is important to note that the atzmi, the interactive self, must have a subject and an object, a perceiver and a perceived. There is a continuous flow of perception to the atzmi from flora, fauna, and inanimate objects. The atzmi may also perceive the body and the ani, the ontological self, as objects. The ani, on the other hand, need not have an object. In some situations – concentrated meditation, mystical experiences, some forms of madness, drug-induced euphoria, and sometimes in orgasm – the ani has no awareness of itself as a separate being from its surroundings. The boundaries of the self may also dissolve, and thus temporary, objectless unity may be achieved. The atzmi, by definition, is a relational entity; therefore, its interaction with its surroundings may be studied in terms of stimulus, response, association, and correlation. These terms may not be practical to the ani, because it is objectless and non-relational in pure form and, therefore, measures of logic, deduction, and inference do not apply to it. If we wish to study the human being as a whole, and not only in fragments, we must rely on intuition, introspection, and even meditation in order to grasp the ani component of the self and, therefore, to fully understand the dual nature of our personalities. Our study of the personality is, therefore,

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holistic and synthetic, not analytic, in contrast to the main thrust of contemporary behavioral science. The crystallization of the self from the non-self is, in effect, a process in which area after area from the original omnipotence of the neonate is torn away. This process continues until the separate atzmi is placed within the specific boundaries of its spatiotemporality and the confines of compelling social norms.87 The essence of the ani precedes the existence of the atzmi. The nondifferentiated entity in the womb and at early orality is an omnipresent, timeless, and infinite essence; an essence then separated and confined within spatio-temporality by its deprivational interaction with its surroundings. Consequently, when embedded within the separate individual, this timeless essence is not a metaphysical, but a natural phase of human development. Our conception of the ani is in line with Edmund Husserl’s later writings, in which he postulates a “pure ego,” claiming that the knowledge of possibilities (inherent in the pure ego) must precede that of actualities.88 In a similar manner, the logical unverifiable essence of the objectless ani differs from Husserl’s pure ego, because the latter relates to experience and not to theoretical, a priori transcendence. The contents of the ani and the atzmi, as well as their relative preponderance with a given personality, relate to the core vectors of the participant and separant personalities, the developmental fixations, and the culture in which the individual is socialized. Finally, we present the ity, which is the Hebrew word for “with me.” The ity is the synthesizer of the dialectical conflicts within the self between the unity-bound ani and the interactive atzmi. The ity is the structured Tantalus Ratio within the self. Its synthesizing function makes the ity the coordinator of human action, and, as such, it has much in common with Freud’s ego. The relative magnitude and preponderance of the poles on our selfcontinuum are related to the developmental factors of the personality core. A violent early oral fixation, a quietist participant culture, and a Tantalic preoccupation at old age will contribute to the predominance of the ani within the self-continuum. Conversely, a separant fixation on the object during a period of vigorous growth of the individual at later orality in an active-Sisyphean culture will make for an overpowering atzmi. The strength or weakness of the coordinating ity will then determine its ability to maintain the self in a dynamic system-in-balance with the ani and the atzmi. The ani is mostly unconscious, because its source is anchored in predifferentiated non-awareness, when the space and time of consciousness have not yet developed. Some of the ani is pre- or semi-conscious, while

34

Introduction

only a few of its manifestations are conscious. Even when the ani is conscious, it lurks more on the peripheries of awareness in déjà vu-like experiences. The atzmi, on the other hand, is largely conscious, partly preconscious (as in many semi-automatic functions we perform in daily life), and only rarely unconscious (as in some religious ecstasies or in druginduced euphoria, which partly dissolves the ego-boundary). The ideal ani is timeless, spaceless, and lacks the sequences of logic and inference. These are generated by the interactive atzmi and structured within the Tantalus Ratio by the coordinating ity. This idea stems from our basic premise that the ani is anchored onto a pre-differentiated unity. Whereas the ani is dominated by a flow of intuition, the atzmi is intentional and attentive to the sequences of experiences and memory, which make for a distinction of before and after, and hence for the sequences of time. The ani on the other hand, is suspended within a Bergsonian dureé-like flow of a continuous present.89 The ani is also spaceless. It projects a universal unity onto transcendent archetypes like the Upanishadic Purusha, the Kabbalist Adam Kadmon, and the Gnostic Primordial Man. The holistic view of the universe, characteristic of ani-dominated mystics, regards the discrete, pluralistic image of reality, perceived by the atzmi as partial, like the eyesight of an alcoholic whose retina has been damaged by methylated spirits. Still, the perception of space is effected by the relationships and interaction of the self’s components with its surrounding objects. Like time, space is generated by the interactive dynamics of the Tantalus Ratio and it is structured by the regulating dialectics of the ity. The ani is not necessarily governed by rules of causality. Causal simultaneity and synchronicity may be acceptable to the ani as different manifestations of one phenomenon, stemming from one source. The ani may be reached experientially through meditation, mystical experiences, or the catalysis of ecstatic or drug-induced “peak experiences.” Logic is inapplicable as a means of discovering the ani; intuition rather than deliberate attention is the proper medium for its unveiling. Conversely, space, time, and causality are inherent in the relational nature of the atzmi. We envisage a dialectical conflict within the Tantalus Ratio of the self. Such a conflict would provide the motivation for the inclusion, i.e., the swallowing of the object by the outward-reaching atzmi. With the help of the coordinating ity, the atzmi can devise surrogate modes of inclusion, which would manifest themselves as socially acceptable or as deviant object relationships. Through constant dialectical conflicts among the components of the self and its environment, the ity creates a system-inbalance that holds the personality in a dynamic equilibrium

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The main attributes of our atzmi are based firstly on the discrete perception of space and the linear perception of time. The perception of the rhythm of time may vary from person to person, and may also be heightened or blurred by drugs. Nevertheless, only the atzmi perceives the linear sequence of past, present, and future as meaningful. The necessity of time and space for the object relations of the atzmi underlies its need for logic, symbolism (language), causality, association, and inference in its interaction with other people and things. Social norms are then incorporated within the self by the coordinating functions of the ity. In contrast to the holistic flow of the ani’s intuition, the atzmi operates by soberly focusing its attention on the object and intentionally relating to it. Essentially, the atzmi is like an omnivore, aiming to swallow the object and thus regaining the exclusive omnipotence that was lost when it was ejected from Eden-like early orality. In our model, the dynamics of the ity are different from those of the ego of Freud. He understands the ego as an executive, making independent decisions and sending out orders over the psychic intercom. Jung regards his ego as an army commander presiding over the sessions of his general staff. The ego, as far as the ego psychologists are concerned, has an autonomous standing that does not stem from the basic drives and core components of the personality. Our ity is different. It is a dialectical forcefield created by the turbulence and pressures from within the personality and from outside it. The dynamic balance held within a stable system is observed in a wide range of phenomena: from a ping-pong ball held in one place by opposing streams of air on a micro level, to the fixed courses of stellar bodies on a macro level. The position, strength, and balance of the regulating ity are a function of the potency of the conflicting personality components, and a measure of their inability to attain their contradictory goals. The human brain records the highly receptive amnestic years. What happens in the first years of life is projected, inter alia, as myths of crucial developments in the formative years. Moreover, human development in the early formative years passes in an accelerated manner through all the evolutionary phases of the human species. Consequently, myths are also a projection of the development of the species as inherent in the development of the human individual. As the ani consciousness is a universal unity reflected in all consciousnesses, it may account for the universal basis of some myths, e.g., the Fall from Grace, the sacrificing of the young Gods, the slaying of the (incestuous) snakes, the breaking of the cosmic vessels (birth), as well as the unitary God. The plurality of consciousness, on the other hand,

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Introduction

provides mythology with the projection of experiential myths, as well as the plurality of Gods and forces projected by the historical experiences and the Sisyphean forces of nature. Tantalus and Sisyphus, in their authentic attitudes, do not forgive. They also have no regrets, because the inner intensity of the authentic experience is what counts, not its outward “success” or “failure.” One discards the obscuring veils of Maya, evades the violent spirals of the Demiourgos, drops the cozy filters of bourgeois slumber and stands drawn, tense, and ready in the eye of the storm. There, in naked, defenseless desperation a cry of anguish of a kindred soul may reach the inner self. If answered, the miracle of a dialogue of grace may yet occur.

The Viable Mythogenes – The System in Balance For the mythogene to exist and continue to survive, its structure must have a homeostatic system-in-balance. Since the Mythogenic Structure contains elements of the divergent entities that it aims to connect, these elements must reach a stable modus vivendi within the structure. Only then do they become viable and effective as a linking agent. The mythogenic contents of the structure may have various quantities, qualities, and proportions of the ani consciousness, energy-matter, participant myths of yearning, and separant myths of experience. The mythogene within the structure, however, must have a system-in-balance; otherwise, it is not viable, durable, or functional in effecting a link between divergent dualities. There is a basic dualism between the ani and the totality of energy matter. The universal potential of this dualism is the first singularity, which is the physical parallel to our ani consciousness. This anisingularity is the pin-point center of black holes which is the potential of energy matter, and is coupled to our synchronic and spiritual ani. This singularity is holonic, a term invented by Arthur Koestler to denote a hierarchy of sub-wholes. Koestler says: The point first to be emphasized is that each member of this hierarchy, on whatever level, is a sub-whole or Holon in its own right – a stable, integrated structure equipped with self-regulatory devices and enjoying a considerable degree of autonomy or self-governing. Cells, muscles, nerves, organs, all have their intrinsic rhythms and patterns of activity, often manifested spontaneously and without external stimulus; they are subordinated as parts to the higher centers of the hierarchy, but at the same time function as quasi-autonomous wholes. They are Janus-faced. The face turned upward, toward the higher levels, is that of a dependent part; the

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face turned downward, towards its own constituents, is that of a whole of remarkable self-sufficiency.90

This system-in-balance is universal and stems from the holonic duality of life forms and objects. We postulate that the nuclei of atoms are held together by a system-in-balance between the strong nuclear force and the repelling force of the positive charges of the protons in the nucleus; the electromagnetic force and Pauli’s exclusion principle hold the atom in a system-in-balance. Gravity and the centrifugal force hold the solar systemin-balance. Life forms, from cells to the organisms, are held in a systemin-balance by forces that we do not have the ability or the knowledge to examine. In The Myth of Tantalus we demonstrated that the human personality is held in a system-in-balance by its participant and separant core vectors.91 We hold that this system-in-balance for objects and life forms is necessary for their space-time existence and evolutionary survival. If we return to the particles, so long as the system-in-balance holds, so does the particle. Once the balance is disrupted, the particle may either decay and then be absorbed by other particles, or form another particle, or revert back to a superposed, wavelike form. In keeping with our method in the present work, we shall trace some of the mytho-empirical anchors necessary to maintain the system-in-balance of both life forms and objects on all levels of existence. The idea that a certain order, equilibrium, or balance is necessary for the existence of objects is not new. The Greek denotation of the word kosmos literally means “order,” its derivative means the art of ornament and adornment, which exemplifies the separant Greek ethos that the world is based on order and aesthetics. Hegel adopted the pre-Socratic dialectics of Heraclites; Marx, who followed in their footsteps, mobilized these ideas to create a new world order, a new cosmos, through revolution. One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Dazhao (1889-1927), adopted a similar strategy when he transferred the Confucian idea of a universal harmony and order into Ta-t’ung, an utopian order meant to prevail in China after the Communist revolution. These ideas represent Sisyphean cycles of chaos, order, revolution, new order, and new chaos, spiraling ad infinitum. The system-in-balance here is technical yet valueless, instrumental yet arbitrary, consisting of social and physical controls. These ideas are the organizational controls of meden agan (a Greek-Delphic principle meaning “nothing in excess”) and ananké (stemming from the Greek Goddess of necessity), which represent the coercion of the physical equilibrium. The latter keeps the heavenly bodies in their orbit and will thrust them back into orbit if they commit the sin of hubris by deviating from it. Ordnung

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Introduction

Muss Sein (“order must be maintained”), is the Germanic version of the Greek separant maxims, which exalts order as a meta-law for man and universe. The participant system-in-balance is the clandestine core dialectic of yearning that especially characterizes the Kabbala. The copulation, zivug, of the cherubs in the Holy of Holies – as postulated by the Kabbala and the Talmud.92 which we hold to be the mytho-empirical projection of the core dialectics of yearning, as the prime mover of both man and God – seem to have permeated the Freudian notion of the basic psychosexuality of man.93 In a similar vein, the participant Judaic ethos of a system-in-balance of core dialectics could have permeated Lévi-Strauss’ thoughts when he formulated his basic notions of structuralism. Figure 0.694 presents a model of structuralism which postulates the space equilibrium of the routine operation of individuals by Lévi-Strauss: Up Left

Ego

Right

Down Fig. 0.6: The space equilibrium of the routine orientation of individuals This model is very similar to the Kabbalist model of the holonic system-in-balance represented by the seven emanated sefirot in dialectic equilibrium, shown in Figure 0.7: Left

Equilibrium

din

Right hessed

tiferet hod

yessod

netzah

malchut Fig. 0.7: The seven emanated sefirot Hessed (grace) and netzah (eternity) represent the right side of being, din (stern judgment) and hod (awe inspiring) reflect the left side of creation, whereas tiferet (glory), yessod (foundation) and malchut

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(kingdom) occupy the dialectical synthesis in the middle. Many scholars have studied the homeostatic and balancing mechanisms in biology and the equilibrium of forces in physics, especially in quantum mechanics.95 These subjects lie outside the scope of the present work, but we shall deal with the system-in-balance, which applies to man, as well as to the Münchausen-like self-regulating mechanisms inherent in revelation and creativity. Atlas, in Greek mythology, embodies the mytho-empirical projection of the system-in-balance between God and creation, because he was entrusted with the maintenance of the pillars linking heaven and earth. He also provides a mytho-empirical anchor for the system-in-balance between man and creation. Hesiod depicts Atlas, the Titan, the man-God, as holding heaven on his head and his hands.96 Etymologically, “atlas” means “very enduring.” The tense creator holding the globe or the Sisyphean stone on his head must be attuned to his task in a dynamic yet precarious equilibrium. Even a slight disturbance may break the creator’s concentration. Effective creativity is therefore a combined mythoempirical projection of both Sisyphus and Atlas. The first represents the object relationship inherent in creativity and the latter the system-inbalance necessary to execute it. Indeed, the system-in-balance between the core vectors is a prior condition for the functioning of both God and man. The absence of a system-in-balance on the biological level disrupts the physical homeostasis and may cause sickness and death. A disjuncture of the core vectors on the personality level may cause structural personality defects, or even madness. The disintegration of the normative balance of an individual may lead to anomie, deviance, and crime. Structurally, all singularities are formed in the image of the first singularity; this is the essence of the expansive nature of energy matter. The pure ani is always a single unity and hence, is the universal consciousness of God. It is reflected as consciousness, which is deterministically encased in all artifacts, from the first wheel to the most sophisticated computer. The ani is existentialist, because we feel it as the essence of our being without need of any further proof. As such, the ani is just as real as any physical reality proven by a scientific experiment or a mathematical equation, if not more so. The ani-unity, as the underlying spiritual essence of all objects and life forms, shapes the basis of mythology, theology, and mysticism that equate the ani-unity with God. Hence, God’s biblical name Yahweh, and “I am that I am,” (Ehyeh asher Ehyeh) represent a continuous present characteristic, the synchronicity of both the pure ani and God. In the Kabbala, the repetition of the word ehyeh as it appears in Exodus is interpreted as meaning that God and man

40

Introduction

reflect each other, or more precisely, that God is reflected in the (inner) man. The ani, as the unique consciousness at the core of all objects and life forms, is one; the transcendental projection of this uniqueness is the unity of God. This unity of God is filtered through the objects and life forms in a kaleidoscopic manner, so that it could fit the peculiarities of a specific life form or object. This is the meaning of theosophic Kabbala’s statement that both God and man consist of lights and containers (commonly known as vessels). The light stems from the unity of infinity, while the vessels are the bodies that contain the light. The kaleidoscopic flowing of Divinity into and through objects and life forms explains the paradox of plurality in unity. Plurality has an infrastructure of unity, yet the appearance and perceptions of all life forms and objects are plural. This might also explain why God created man in His own image – the one inner image permeating every thing and every creature. Thus, the Divine inner essence of the plurality of creatures and things is identical, differing only outwardly with endless permutations, so that each object and every life form is unique. This is a reflection of the uniqueness of God in each object and life form. Each emanant sees itself as a unique entity vis-à-vis the Unitarian uniqueness of the emanator. The timeless, spaceless, and attributeless ani, though unique, is present in all life forms and could be present in objects and artifacts as contained (canned) consciousness. The ani, the universal consciousness reflected in each object and life form is also present in the singularity, which is the potential of energy-matter, and is a point in the infinite matter density, infinite temperature, and infinite space-time curvature.97 There is a fair degree of consensus that a singularity was the potential of the Big Bang which generated the universe. A singularity is also the ultimate fate of the Big Crunch and other dynamics, such as matter collapsing into black holes. All singularities are surrounded by an event horizon, the boundaries of extreme gravity, from which even light itself cannot escape.98 We hold this event horizon to be the curtain from which energy emanates into history. Immediately following the Big Bang, there was absolute symmetry and uniformity of energy, and the four fundamental forces of nature (gravitational, electromagnetic, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force) were not yet differentiated. Therefore, the universe was filled with an undifferentiated “soup” of matter and radiation in which each particle collided very rapidly with other particles. Despite its rapid expansion, the universe was in a state of near-perfect thermal equilibrium.99

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Thus, in the beginning, all was symmetric, isomorphic, and the phenomena were created by synthesizing ani consciousness and energymatter as means for subsequent creation. More than anything else, man is a manufacturer of mythogenes. These are the connecting agents between the ani consciousness and energy-matter structured into a model of a phenomenon to be realized subsequently by an act of creation. Man’s atzmi, his interactive self, synthesizes mythogenes by connecting his ani consciousness with well-defined parts of his environment. The Logos, when directed at an object, became fixated as a nametag or symbol. Man was a name-caller for God, and whatever name he gave a creature became the symbol by which it was known.100 The symbol stems from the Greek symbolon. In ancient Greece, a symbolon was originally represented by a bone broken into two pieces. These were given to the two parties in a contract. The perfect fit of the parts of the bone of these two pieces was the ultimate evidence, like signatures, for the existence of the contract. Hence, the symbol evolved from a linking function. Therefore, the word – the Logos – when structured into a symbol, became a connecting agent, entering into a dialogue, dia in Greek is “moving through” the Logos, and connecting it with an object or life form. The Mythogenic Structure precedes any act of creation, which involves the integration of consciousness and energy-matter, be it a poem, a painting, or a quantum particle. These integrations of consciousness and energy, which take place on the quantum level, cannot be consciously perceived and remembered by creatures, because they happen in the unconscious, although they very likely involve the processes of memory, thought, intuition, and emotion. These processes, which are all based on microdynamics that take place on the quantum level, are integrated in the ani consciousness of the personality and are therefore projected onto mythology as experiential myths. Hence, scientific analysis of mythology may divulge information, not only on the personality structure and social character, but also on quantum mechanics. The ani consciousness is indeterministic. It has an existentialist freedom of choice, which it imbues in all life forms. We hold that, in its own fashion, even a tree makes an indeterministic choice to push its roots in one direction rather than another. No artifact has a free choice, however, because its creator has implanted in it, by means of a Mythogenic Structure, a consciousness equipped to perform certain tasks. Hence, any artifact is imbued with a deterministic contained consciousness. The Ba’al Shem Tov (the Besht, the charismatic founder of the Hassidic movement), expressed this idea through his teachings that a man infuses his power into everything he creates.

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Both a Paleolithic spearhead and the most sophisticated computer have a deterministic contained consciousness. They cannot perform differently from the design intended by their creator. Computer experts are guided by the maxim “garbage in, garbage out,” when considering the cybernetic aptitude of their charges. The contained consciousness in artifacts is the intention that guided their creation – the algorithmic performance of a certain set of tasks. One of the most important differences between the contained consciousness of artifacts and the indeterministic ani consciousness of life forms, especially of man, is that the latter can experience revelation, whereas the former (the spearhead, the computer) cannot. However complex the hardware of a computer may be, however sophisticated its software, it can only carry out the tasks it was programmed to perform algorithmically and deterministically. Creatures, on the other hand, have freedom of will, and in our opinion, this is the basis of their indeterministic abilities, as well as their capacity to experience revelation. When we look at a picture by van Gogh, it may strike us with its overwhelming potency even a century after the artist’s death. The same may be said of a novel by Dostoyevsky, or a concerto by Bach. The consciousness of an artist is contained in his work and is transferred to his work of art through the creative act. We claim that every creation is a dialectic between consciousness and matter, mediated by the Mythogenic Structure. The disruption of the equilibrium within the object may lead to its destruction and, on a universal level this may be equivalent to the Big Bang. A disharmony or maladjustment of a life form to its environment may lead to its evolutionary setback or failure. The Gnostic plané and the theosophical Kabbalist feeding of the kellipot (the vile shells of the cosmic refuse) represent the disruptions between man and transcendence. Such a disjunction of the inner equilibrium within the Godhead may eventually lead to the catastrophe of the breaking of the vessels.101 The system-inbalance between core vectors seems, therefore, to be a universal principle of existence and creativity. Both the mystical books of the Zohar and the Lurianic Kabbala attest to this principle. The Kings in the Zohar died because of a disjunction between hessed (grace) and din (stern judgment).102 In our model, this stands for a disruption between the core vectors of separation and participation. If man has no inner system-inbalance, he is neither capable of creativity nor of meaningful dialogue with God or his fellow man. Of special importance is the error of Pistis Sophia: The Sophia, who is called the Pistis, wished to accomplish a work alone without her mate. And her work became an image of heaven. There is a

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curtain between the aeons above and the aeons which are below. And a shadow came into existence below the curtain. And that shadow became matter. And that shadow was cast into a region, and its form became a work in matter like an abortion.103

The essence of the Demiourgos is that it deems itself self-sufficient in a solipsistic manner. Evil considers itself alone in the world, and hence, everything belongs, or should belong, to it. Without dialogue, one is blind to the other. Without the core dialogue of energy, without the Kabbalist zivug, there can be no viable creation; without a system-in-balance between the holonic dualities within an individual, there is a risk of madness and death, while the lack of equilibrium within Divinity may lead to error and hubris. The hubris of the deities abounds in Greek mythology. Acting alone without heeding the counsel of his fellow Gods, Prometheus disrupted the equilibrium of creation by purveying man with fire. He was punished by the Gods for lending man the advantage of instrumental manipulation, which allowed man to gain dominion over other life forms. Considering the pollution and violent sovereignty that generations of man have inflicted on our planet, one may agree with the Olympians’ position. If he is still chained to his rock serving his punishment, Prometheus is, in all likelihood, thumping his fist on his chest in atonement for his hubris. Whereas Prometheus committed an instrumental, Sisyphean act of hubris, Icarus was guilty of a Tantalic, participant act of hubris. His search for revelation induced him to soar dangerously high. Exposing his inadequate wings to the scorching light of the sun (the demiurgical fire), he consequently plunged into the sea and drowned. In order to experience revelation, one has to evade direct epistemic exposure to the Demiourgos. Icarus’ father, Daedalus, warned him against flying too high or too low (to maintain his system-in-balance). To experience revelation in the “eye of the storm,” Icarus succumbed to his hubris, exposing himself to the scorching Demiourgos. In man, hubris is even more lethal. Any biological, personal, or social conspicuousness has been held in many societies and eras as a sign of hubris, and has been tagged as deviance. The characteristics that render a person or an object conspicuous were judged negatively in many Sisyphean societies. In ancient Greece, where policymaking was often realistic, stigmatization by ostracism was achieved by “chipping off the tallest ears of corn” (i.e., those who seemed to be more conspicuous than necessary). In our context, the relevant question asked by the assembly was, “Is there any man among you whom you think is dangerous to the state? If so, who?” Conspicuousness, in Ancient Greece was almost synonymous with danger to the community.

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The same theme recurs with apparent clarity in Greek mythology, which shows that stigma befalls a person who is too conspicuous, too wealthy, too successful, or too wise, thereby bringing on himself the jealousy of men and Gods alike. Prometheus was excessively punished, not only because he brought fire to mortals, but also because his outstanding knowledge of science and medicine filled Zeus with jealousy and anger. This stigma as sanction is not necessarily a punishment of deviation from laws or moral standards. Man is often sanctioned for no apparent reason. A person has his moira, “one’s lot in life,” and if he exceeds it by being conspicuous in any way, he commits hubris and arouses the jealousy of the strikingly anthropomorphic Greek Gods.104 Herodotus recounts the message of Artabanos to Xerxes: You see that God hurls his bolt against those living beings that tower above the rest. He does not suffer them to exalt themselves. The small ones, on the other hand, do not bother him. You see that lightning always strikes the tallest houses and trees. For God loves to set a limit to everything that rises too high. For God does not suffer anyone but himself to harbor proud thoughts.105

Agamemnon’s hubris consisted of being awarded a hero’s welcome as “the highest of all who walk on earth today.”106 We may note that although the crowd committed the sin of hubris, Agamemnon was doomed because “The black furies wait, and when a man has grown great by luck, not justice, without turn of chance, they wear him to a shade and cast him down to perdition. Who shall save him?”107 Again, we have a mythological clue to the main criteria of social stigma, “An excess of fame is dangerous.” But for whom is it dangerous? It is apparently dangerous to the jealous multitudes (the Gods). Drachman comments on the theme of punishment without offense in Greek tragedy: Our first question, when the immediate effect of the magnificent drama has subsided, is this: But what has he done? ‘Done?’ answers the Greek in astonishment, ‘He has not done anything. That is the point of it. It has all happened unknown to him.’ – Well, but then it is all the most outrageous injustice. – ‘I do not understand you,’ says the Greek; ‘Do you mean to deny that such things can happen to you, any day, nay, at any moment? Or are you even for an instant safe from the invasion of the most appalling horror that your mind can grasp? If you are, you had better realize what human life is. This is what Sophocles’ drama should help you to do.’108

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The epitome of this theme is encapsulated in the story of Polycrates, King of Samos, whose hubris, according to Herodotus, was his conspicuous success and outstanding prosperity. The anthropomorphic Greek Gods or primitive tribes are not alone in their inclination to punish man’s disruption of the system-in-balance. Lurianic Kabbala holds that Original Sin is inherent in Adam’s hubris, as expressed by his over-eagerness to copulate with Eve. Adam disrupted the cosmic equilibrium by carrying out his zivug (mating) before the Sabbath (an optimal time for a zivug of mending, tikkun). In addition, he performed a disruptive and polluting mating with Lilith (Satan’s consort), thereby bringing about the profane zivug of Eve with the snake.109 Likewise, Moses committed hubris by striking the rock instead of speaking to it, as God had ordained, in order to free the water within. Moses, therefore, also caused a disruptive zivug instead of an harmonious one.110 The breaking of the vessels, previously mentioned, was a violent disruption of the system-in-balance of the Godhead, whereas the Original Sin and the Golden Calf represent dramatic disruptions of the process of God’s tikkun (mending). The Beraita of Talmud Hagiga, which tells of the four sages who entered the mystical orchard (pardes), provides a mythoempirical support for our contention of the effects of a strong cathartic experience, such as mystical revelation, on the intra-psychic system-inbalance. Two of them, Ben Azzai who died, and Ben Zoma who went mad, apparently had a very skewed and precarious system-in-balance. The forceful mystical experiences physically shattered the first’s system-inbalance and mentally shattered the second’s. The third, Ben Avuya, apparently had a loosely integrated system-in-balance. Yet, after its initial disruption, it reached a reintegration on another level of being, within another belief system. He became an acher, an apostate. Rabbi Akiva apparently had a strongly integrated system-in-balance, enabling him to undergo the revelatory experience without being injured. Indeed, man’s system-in-balance is very precarious on all three levels of his being (biological, personal, and social). In The Myth of Tantalus, we discussed the vulnerability of the Sisyphean and Tantalic personality types to outside stimuli. On the cortical level, the activist Sisyphean type, more than the Tantalic type, needs the initial arousal in order to initiate his functioning. On the personality level, the Tantalic type is averse to stimuli, whereas the Sisyphean type is hungry for them. On the social level, the Sisyphean type is a group performer, whereas the Tantalic type is a loner.111 These traits, measured along continua, can indicate the vulnerability of the various personality types to the disruption of their system-in-balance, with regard to the three levels that are interrelated

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within the individual as holistic units. When one of these levels, or the person himself, is exposed to a traumatic experience, they try to “mend” and balance themselves on another level of being. However, when the tikkunim (mendings) are unsuccessful, the individual may die, go insane, or become alienated. There is no intrinsic difference between the vulnerability of man’s system-in-balance and God’s. Both must be “mended” if their inner equilibrium has been disrupted, which makes for constant change in man and in God. Both the mortal and the Divine are in a constant progress of “becoming.” Both undergo processes, but as they are aligned with their Tantalic and Sisyphean meta-myths, they never reach their goals. A system-in-balance also constitutes a precedent condition for revelation and creativity. Revelation can flow through a balanced infrastructure, and then be transmitted to others and to God, as a universal Thou. Given his creativity, man is also the connecting link between the mindless, valueless Demiourgos and the powerless and silent Godhead. Man creates the viable equilibrium between psyche and soma, between God and His creation. There can be no abdication for a creative Sisyphus; without him, everything reverts to chaos. The sefirot (rungs) of the Kabbala are divided into three heads as shown in figure 0.8: Left

Middle

Right

bina (intelligence)

keter (crown)

hochma (wisdom)

din (stern judgment)

tiferet (glory)

hessed (grace)

hod (awe inspiring)

yessod (foundation)

netzah (eternity)

malchut (kingdom) Fig. 0.8: The divisions of the sefirot

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The right-hand side of Figure 0.3, which is dominated by the sefira of grace, contains those sefirot that descriptively constitute the participantTantalic attributes of God. The left-hand side, the sinister side, dominated by stern judgment, is materially separant-Sisyphean, whereas the middle column presents the dialectical synthesis. As the structure of the sefirot is holonic, and permeates all of creation and transcendence, it postulates that the system-in-balance is a meta-principle regulating the viability of God, man, and their relationship. In Lurianic Kabbala, the light which radiates from infinity and which builds all the worlds is denoted as kav hamida,112 the ray of balance that builds the world in measures and balances. The breaking of the vessels was caused by the disharmony between the Divine light flowing from infinity and the emanated containers (vessels) that were meant to hold them.113 The Original Sin disrupted the initial harmony between the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. The molding of the Golden Calf disrupted the face-to-face mating between the ze’er (male) and nukbah (female).114 The purpose of the tikkun is therefore to reinstate the harmony between the countenances of Divinity. According to Joseph Gikatilla, the soul of the tzadik, the Kabbalist pneumaticus, is represented by the synthesizing sefira of yessod, which he denotes as shadai. This is a jeux de mots, since shadai is both a denotation of God and a balancing, harmonizing, and regulating of power between transcendence and creation.115 The world of atzilut, the primeval world of infinity, which represents the harmonious emanator Godhead, is denoted by the Kabbala as olam hamatkela, “the world of balance.”116 In Gnosis, we have a dialectic between spirit and matter.117 This is necessary because the Godhead is alien to temporality and does not activate the world of creation. Hence, the particles of light (souls) mingle with the demiurgal matter and activate it. This, apparently, is carried out through the mediation of the messenger of Christ who is also denoted in Gnosis as “the measured one.”118 In existentialism, we find Kierkegaard, its founding father, stating as follows, “A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short a synthesis.”119 In Either/Or, Kierkegaard examines the equilibrium between the aesthetic (the separant-Sisyphean in our model) and the ethical (the participantTantalic in our model) in the composition of personality.120 Again, we see an equilibrium, a system-in-balance. For Heidegger, the language of philosophy was Greek, “Das Wort ‘Philosophie’ spricht jetzt Griechisch.” Camus went even further. In a celebrated interview he declared, “A Greek heart pounds in me.” Camus embraced the Greek maxim of meden agan, of balance and equilibrium. In a period when most of the avant-garde

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European intelligentsia opted for revolution, Camus was unfashionable, but he attained authenticity in his preaching against revolution. The French Revolution brought the Terror, the Nazi Revolution culminated in Auschwitz, and the Communist Revolution had its purges and Gulags; hence, “nothing-in-excess.” Camus recognized the courage of the middle way; the heroic nature of creative rebellion within the eye of the demiurgical storm of history. The system-in-balance between the separant and participant core vectors is not only a precedent condition for the containment of the energy generated by our dialectical quests in a viable structure, but is also necessary for the creative transmission of this energy in a dialogical and authentic manner. For charisma to flow, the person experiencing the revelation of grace must be attuned to an inner feedback from himself and from his audience. For revelation to stream into structured creativity, Sisyphus must be attuned to his stone and carve it into a vehicle for dialogue. Thus, the structured revelation-throughsuffering of, for example, van Gogh, is emitted by his canvases, while Antonin Artaud tried unsuccessfully to transmit his torment in the form of unstructured shrieks hurled at a theater audience. The disruption of Artaud’s core vectors resulted in madness, making his hell strictly private. The Demiourgos is a God of creation and of history, space and atomic energy. He is the Divine container of the Kabbala, receiving the flow from the light of grace from the Godhead. The Demiourgos interacts with the Godhead through creativity to produce creation. Sisyphus thus imbues his stone with grace and the inert Godhead is able to experience vicariously the authentic triumphs and disasters of a Mozart, a van Gogh, or a Brel. Existentialistically, inauthentic creativity, which is unpalatable to the Godhead, is left to the Demiourgos as Gnostic Error or Kabbalistic din and kellipot. Creativity, if authentic, may generate the energy for an I-Thou dialogue, linking the Godhead (the Universal Thou) and creation. If inauthentic, flawed creativity degenerates into the petrification of a Buberian I-It relationship. The Gnostic messenger, the Kabbalist tzadik, the initiator of tikkun, is the go-between of revelation, linking the thing-in-itself in transcendence with the prime mover emanated into history. This is why Tantalus, the protagonist of our meta-myth, is a Titan, part God who is still in transcendence and part man, God’s image and emanant theophany within history. The dialogic prayer that takes place in history between the self and the transcendental Universal Thou actually generates the energy of revelation. It is the process of revelation in itself, without any further goal beyond it; revelatory prayer is God. Sisyphus, likewise, is the creative link between the Godhead and the Demiourgos. He symbolizes the integration

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between man’s desperate creative spirit and the demiurgical stone, which are both his burden and his destiny. Myths have many layers, and one stratum of the Original Sin may point to the hubris of attaining self-consciousness, being the prerogative of God. Therefore, Judeo-Christianity ordained abject humility to offset the Original Sin and not just a Greek meden agan to keep everything and everybody within the statistical middle range of the mean, median, and mode. The evolutionary need for a system-in-balance for the survival of Mythogenic Structures might also explain the tragic faith of too-great innovators and too-revelatory revolutionaries. Galileo, van Gogh, and Melville effected virtual revolutions in their creative realms; hence, the demiurgical social structure defended both itself and the Mythogenic Structures, which sustained the cultural system against the upheaval of excessive and disruptive innovations. Likewise, Jesus Christ, al-Hallaj, and Meister Eckhart were revelatory revolutionaries who threatened to rupture the Mythogenic Structures of existing religious institutions. As evolution and the survival of Mythogenic Structures are averse to the violence of revolutions, those religious institutions defended themselves by persecuting their assailants. Indeed, the ani consciousness prods man the creator and the projector of Mythogenic Structures to relate to energy-matter. This is because of the longing of the attributeless ani, and the spiritual Kabbalist arich-anpin (the sufferer), who are in constant pain due to their inability to reach a modus vivendi, a complementary relationship with the mindless, brutal, demiurgical energy-matter. The ani and the arich-anpin suffer because their efforts are often unsuccessful to reach a creative involvement with their surroundings. This creative relationship can be achieved by an evolutionary viable and structurally intact mythogene. Man, the anthropic mediator, is also infused with the suffering of the arich-anpin, to motivate him better to create and effect a modus vivendi with the demiurgical energy-matter. This suffering is exacerbated by man being thrown into the world, to use Heidegger’s phrase, with his parents’ genes that may handicap him. Later, these parents coerce him into submission and into delimiting norms through surrogate sacrificial rites of passage. Again, the relationship between suffering and creativity, which entails the structuring of viable mythogenes, is curvilinear. Too much suffering will crush Homo faber (man the creator) burying him under the Sisyphean stone; only a median amount of pain will induce man into creativity, which will effect a complementarity between the ani consciousness and energy-matter.

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Evolution is a dynamic of being, not of non-being; hence, it is a record of successes and not failures. Since mediocrities seem to be more viable in power structures and in institutions, and talent is not democratic, the creative innovators who rock the boat are hunted down, persecuted, subdued, and often, destroyed by the power structures of societies and social institutions. Yet creative innovators also enrich, fructify, and enhance cultures even though the power elites subjugate, discredit, and suppress these pioneers as “just desserts” for their creative pains. Mythoempirically, Persephone, who sacrifices the sacred king who fertilized her, portrays this subjugation. Persephone – who brings destruction – is the mature nymph of the Demetrian triad of Goddesses: Koré-maiden, Persephone-nymph, and Hecate-Crone. They partake in the mysteries of fertility rites.121 Persephone represents the demiurgical evil forces (some of her epitaphs are “the fearful one,” and “she who kills”), which destroy those who fructify them. She devours her lovers like a praying mantis, like the social institutions, artists’ cliques and promotion committees in academia destroy the most gifted creators, those who do not fit in. Indeed, creative innovators are almost by definition deviants from the modes, means, and median parameters of the group. Still, the creative innovator cannot but continue to be creative despite the hazards of his vocation. The artist must heed Nietzsche’s mandate to create dangerously; van Gogh, in his misery, wrote to his brother that he could renounce everything except his need to create. However, if we accept Buber’s dictum that an I-Thou relationship generates the authenticity of being, whereas an I-It association is an inauthentic slumber, then creativity transfuses the juice of life into a petrified I-It relationship between man and objects, other people, and God, and resuscitates it by the Mythogenic Structures of endeavor, daring, and revolt. Our developmental model of personality formation poses three major dichotomies corresponding to the three major human developmental phases. The first is Hamlet’s “to be or not to be,” associated with the primary Heidegerrean Geworfenheit Zum Tod. The second is the existentialist epistemic dilemma of “to know or not to know,” linked to the coagulation of a separate self out of the pantheistic mass of early orality. The third is the socio-normative dimension of man’s mythogenic relationship with his group, whether to conform to its norms or deviate from them. These three dichotomous queries entail the structure of the personality we dealt with in The Myth of Tantalus,122 and the relationship between consciousness and energy-matter elucidated in The Promethean Bridge.123

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Our mytho-empirical method examines the links between mythogenes and individual creations, mythologies and cultures. First, the Mythogenic Structure is formed by the revelation of individuals; this is a blueprint for individual creations. Mythogenes, being complementarities between the longing and experience of man, embody the developmental processes of the human being. These not only incorporate the transformational phases of personal growth but also the evolutionary development in the individual human body. The mythogenes are the building blocks of mythologies which are the developmental expression of social characters which are the “composite portraits of a culture.”124 The Authentic Domain is the reservoir of all viable mythologies embodied in sacred and traditional texts as well as guarded in museums, libraries, and achieves.125 Of great importance is the structuring of the mythogene: it is through the revelatory processes in the Augenblick (eye blink) of the Heideggerean present that a mythogene is created. When the individual draws from his memory to form the experiential part of the mythogene, the past appears to him in the synchronic present. Likewise, his longings are ingrained in the mythogene in the same way that they are in a given synchronicity – which is peculiar to this given and unique point in the space-time continuum. The Authentic Domain and mythologies are the conduit to the formation of mythogenes which are formed in the continuous present. This is mytho-empiricized by the Midrash, according to which all of Israel were present in the synchronicity of the endowment of the Torah on Mount Sinai.126 Once the mythogene has been formed through revelation in synchronicity, the act of creation starts with the mythogene being embedded in the medium of creation. Thus the structured mythogene is ingrained in the artistic medium such as a canvas, a sculpture, or a sonnet. The Mythogenic Structure generated in the psyche of the artist is infused and embedded as a particle of the artist’s consciousness within this medium. When we look at a picture by van Gogh, it may strike us with its overwhelming potency even a century after the artist’s death. The consciousness of an artist is contained in his work and is transferred to his work of art through the creative act. We claim that every creation is a dialectic between consciousness and matter, mediated by the Mythogenic Structure. For the Mythogenic Structures to pass over to an audience willing and ready “to open up” to the artist’s creation, the execution of the work of art, with the Mythogenic Structures as blueprints, must be authentic in its dialogic, maieutic transmission. Creation is the expression of a unique personality. To be authentic the creation has to include the artist’s inner self as structured within, the

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mythogenes which are ingrained in the work of art. The creation is made up of dynamics specific to the artist as are his fingerprints. Thus, an imitation of another’s creativity renders the creation inauthentic. Discipleship can also render a creation inauthentic, unless the masterteacher relationship to his pupil is of a maieutic nature. This is like the Buberian concept of reaching out towards the object as the baseline for a dialogical relationship. Hence, we see creativity as a bridge between man and object. By imbuing an object with his visions and molding it as his creation, man the creator, the Homo faber, entwines his psyche with the object. The creator’s longing to communicate his artistic message to kindred souls, who may appreciate it, wherever and whenever they may be, effects a link between artist and audience outside the confines of space and time. This mutual longing to communicate by means of a work of art makes genuine creativity eternal. This communicability of a creation is also the main criterion of its durable value. Some art dates, but Mozart, Chekhov and van Gogh seem as fresh and relevant now as they did years ago. The communicative timelessness of a work of art makes it a dialogue in eternity. The author had the opportunity to see a retrospective exhibition of the works of Antonello Da Messina held in his native town. His works, especially a wooden Christ, raised the author to intense heights of aesthetic euphoria, as if he himself was engaged in painting or sculpting the exhibits. Da Messina thus gained a measure of immortality by infusing his authentic creation with an artistic message which continues to be communicative beyond his own place and time. The creator may also feel a dialogue-like affinity with his tool: a sculptor with his chisels, a painter with his brush, an author with a thick fountain pen with which he has written all his books in longhand. The artist may feel that he has reached the core of his creation with these personalized tools. This is not unlike the feeling recounted by Buber of having reached a dialogue with a tree by means of a walking stick, which he felt to be an extension of himself. This link with a tool or object cannot be effected by a sense of possession, or through an impersonal, automated, functional, mass-produced product. The artist must sense that he has imbued it with his personalized uniqueness. He must feel that his vision has been infused into the object’s inner core. The mytho-empirical anchor for the dynamic of seeking communication with the object by means of creativity, is the avoda begashmiut, work or worship in the concrete. This is based on the Lurianic Kabbalistic myth of “the breaking of the vessels.” The myth holds that a cosmic disaster caused sparks of Divinity to be scattered into spatio-temporality and become embedded in each object and

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life-form. Authentic creativity returns these sacred sparks to their source in Divinity. An even earlier mytho-empirical anchor for communication with the object through creativity, is the myth of the Gnostic messenger, whose aim it was to set in motion the ships of light and start the revolution of the cosmic spheres. This would liberate the particles of Divine light entrapped in nature. This and the Manichean Jesus Potabilis (who is dispersed in all creation), is the transcendental projection of the quest of Homo faber to reach the Divine core of the object and link it to his own core-vectors by the dialectics of creativity. Worshipping in the concrete has other manifestations. Henry Thoreau built his hut beside Walden Pond, where he felt a dialogic affinity with the woods, air, water and stars. Camus’ heroes find their Sisyphean raison d’être in being able to create, save, and cure in the midst of the existential plague. Chomsky even proposes that the dialectical involvement with language is the baseline of creativity. The creator tries to build a bridge between Himself and the word as the object. The Hebrew poet, Shlonsky, went to the extent of claiming that he never used a word before making love to it. If creativity is spurred by a core need to communicate, how is communication through creativity effected? We hold that through his creation or performance, the creator transmits the intensity and sincerity of his longing and experience, as structured in the mythogenes ingrained in the artistic medium to his audience. The audience, perceiving the work of art may be catalyzed into feeling a similar longing and experience. However, the Mythogenic Structures of the artist and the individuals in the audience are anchored on their unique bio-psycho-cultural make-up, and are bound to be different. Yet, the coincidence of their yearnings in time lends them a sense of communication, effected by their common elation. Thus, James Galway may be elated by the visions of green pastures, smiling Irish eyes, and laughter. Yet the music emanating from his flute will arouse different yearnings form his audience. These yearnings are related to the aims of their personality core vectors. One person may long for the red mountains of Eilat while another, for the blue heat of Lake Tiberias in the summer, and, yet a third, for the black eyes and olive skin of Yemenite girls. Thus a common longing and experience mythogenically structured by the artist within the artistic medium and transmitted maieutically to the audience by the performance or work of art, creates the sense of communication, irrespective of the wide difference in the nature of their yearnings. The artist is required to be authentic and intensively

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sincere in order to spur a communicative elation in the audience. Without this, the artist’s performance is liable not to “pass.” The authenticity of a work of art removes it from diachronicity and the time-and-place-bound judgment of art critics, the economic considerations of gallery owners, and the biases of artistic cliques. The maieutic dialogue between artist and audience, mediated by the artistic medium, is effected by the structured mythogenes of the artist which, if authentic, are outside time. This happens by triggering the structuring of the corresponding mythogenes of longing and experience within the bio-psycho-social configurations of members of the audience. Although the biological bases of personalities and the social context of the artist and the audience are widely divergent, the inspiration of the artist generates a dialogue which is a goal in itself. According to the philosophers of dialogue, especially Kierkegaard and Buber, the “I” and the “Thou,” the self and the object, are only inchoate entities; the primary ontological essence is the dialogical relationship between the I and the Thou, the self and the object. The dialogue of art is not only the bridge between human individuals, life forms, and objects, but also the source of existential meaning. If an IThou encounter occurs by means of a work of art, a sense of revelation and meaning follows. Without this dialogue, the surrounding environment becomes menacing or dull, loaded with an I-It opaqueness. Thus both the structuring of the mythogene and the process of authentic creativity take place in synchronicity. The exposure to authentic creations, both art and artifacts, also takes place in synchronicity. Only inauthentic creations are buried in diachronic history, together with the rejected fossils of evolution. After the formation of mythogenes and the creation of space-time, art and artifacts are created by an interaction with the universal consciousness reflected in human beings. This underlies one of the major premises of the present work: both mythogene and spatiotemporality are linked to the universal consciousness as reflected in human beings and, for that matter, in all creatures and objects. In addition, the experiential component of the mythogene introduces the developmental history of the individual as extant in his personality, traumas, fixations, and memories as well as the evolution of the social character as inherent in the culture of a society. Since the developmental phases of both the individual and the social character are limited, their correspondent myths are also traceable. Thus in our personality theory127 we have mythoempiricized the catastrophic enormity of birth, equating it with the Kabbalistic myth of the breaking of the vessels, the cosmic disaster. In Lurianic Kabbala, this equates with the bursting out of a fetus from its mother’s womb.128

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The Fall from Grace is the mytho-empirical equivalent to the transition from pantheistic early orality to the loneliness of later orality. The individual is expelled from the cushioning and engulfing early orality. The next stage of normative separation is socialization into the normative mesh of society. This is mythologically anchored on the sacrifice of Isaac for males, and the offering of Iphigenia by Agamemnon for females. This sacrificial syndrome signifies the coercion of the young into the normative boundaries set by their elders. It counters the Oedipal pressures, the incestuous aggression of children against their parents. Only when the Oedipal complexes and the sacrificial pressures achieve a system-inbalance is the family, the smallest social unit and the all important channel of the social norms, ready for its paramount socializing role. As for cosmogony, we may mention the striking similarity between the singularity within the event horizon of the black hole, preceding the Big Bang, and the Lurianic Kabbala’s reshimu, a holy spark in the middle of the tehiru, a godless void, antecedent to the creation of the world.129 We hold that relationship is not causal but ontological. Thus the bonding between the human psyche and the Authentic Domain as mythoempiricized by the Burning Bush, which links synchronicity and diachronicity, forms the mythogene structure. Similarly, the measuring of a particle or a wave by a human indeterministic decision creates the eigenstate of the physical system. Hence the subjective state of mind of the individual, as well as his socialization in a given social character, determines to a great extent both the formation of the mythogene and the creation of spatio-temporality. Therefore the conception and perception of space and time varies with every individual and with each social character. The relationship between human consciousness and the Authentic Domain in synchronicity, which forms a mythogene as well as the “implicate order” (the potentiality of creation in synchronicity as conceptualized by David Bohm130) to form an eigenstate in diachronicity, is not synthetic but complementary. Niels Bohr conceptualized the notion of complementarity to explain the relationship between human consciousness and the decision to measure an eigenstate of a physical system in his Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. It seems that through Hefding, Søren Kierkegaard’s pupil and Bohr’s teacher, Bohr was influenced into thinking that the basic dualities of man and nature may be bridged by complementarities which do not obliterate the independent essence of the bonded dualities. This is unlike dialectics which destroys the thesis and the antithesis by their fusion in the synthesis. Mytho-empirically the spirit of God, which in our context is reflected in all creatures and objects, does not touch the primeval waters but hovers over it.131 Hence God and creation do

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not touch, but interact in a complementary manner. This allows God to relate to man and creation in a Socratic, maieutic manner; unlike the Greek Gods, man is not coerced by God, but is coached by Him maieutically to believe that through free will, he has discovered the right way of behavior. It is a striking coincidence that in Michelangelo’s depiction of God and Adam in the Sistine Chapel, God is portrayed as not touching Adam when He created him. A synapsis is clearly visible between God’s finger and Adam’s hand. Adam’s limp hand seems to be free to pursue his own endeavors with a free will. Thus the spirit of man, or the spirit of God as reflected in him, is never blemished, contaminated, or decimated by the creation of a Mythogenic Structure or an eigenstate of a physical system. This eigenstate of the physical system, once created by complementarity with the human spirit, has a life of its own. This shows the difference between an existentialist complementarity and a Hegelian coercive dialectic. Immanuel Kant’s concept of time and space served as a foundation for the subjective notion of spatio-temporality. Both time and space are cognitive filters in the human psyche. They enable us to order our experiences132 and quests and structure them into mythogenes. Bergson’s durée réel, the smooth uninterrupted temporal flux, regards time as a subjective dynamic. He says: “While our consciousness introduces succession into external things, inversely these things themselves externalize the successive movements of our inner duration in relation to one another.”133 It seems that our inner duration flows in a continuous present, like the smooth glide on the circumference of the mandala. Once the duration is externalized onto diachronicity, it assumes the successive sequences of a spiked samsara wheel. Is Bergson’s “pure duration” synchronic? It is not clear. However, the following passage might have a clue to his meaning: A thousand incidents arise, which seem to be cut off from those which precede them, and to be disconnected from those which follow. Discontinuous though they appear, however, in point of fact they stand out against the continuity of a background on which they are designed, and to which indeed they owe the intervals that separate them; they are the beats of the drum which break forth here and there in the symphony. Our attention fixes on them because they interest it more, but each of them is borne by the fluid mass of our whole psychical existence. Each is only the best illuminated point of a moving zone which comprises all that we feel or think or will- all, in short, that we are at any given moment. It is this entire zone which in reality makes up our state. Now, states thus defines cannot be regarded as distinct elements. They continue each other in an endless flow.

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But, as our attention has distinguished and separated this flow artificially, it is obliged next to reunite it by an artificial bond. If our existence was composed of separate states with an impassive ego to unite them, for us there would be no duration. For an ego which does not change does not endure, and a psychic state which remains the same as long as it is not replaced by the following state does not endure either. Vain, therefore, is the attempt to range such states beside each other: never can these solids strung upon solids make up that duration which flows. What we actually obtain in this way is an artificial imitation of the internal life, a static equivalence which will lend itself better to the requirements of logic and language, just because we have eliminated from it the element of real time. But, as regards the psychic life unfolding beneath the symbols which conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuff this psychic life is made of.134

This convoluted passage could be interpreted that there are no sequences or discreet intervals in synchronicity, duration flows into timeless eternity. Sequences of time are created by our acts, which create interludes, and intermissions in the flow of time and give the perception of diachronicity. For Bergson, time is essentially a subjective dynamic. Nascent reality is a tendency,135 a statistical potential very much like Schrödinger’s wave function and Bohm’s Implicate Order. The “explicate order” of diachronic reality is generated by the interaction between human consciousness and the synchronic superposition of probabilistic potentialities. The classical world is diachronic and is dominated by spatio-temporal structures. The quantum world is fuzzy and, as we are not sure that it is synchronic, probability reigns through Schrödinger’s wave function and Bohm’s implicate order. The structure that bonds the classic and quantum worlds is the mythogene. Structures are a-historic; they can exist both in diachronicity and in synchronicity and as mythogenes, they can be effective as links between the classic and quantum worlds. Since the Mythogenic Structures are the creative blueprints, they have an independent existence which is, of course, prior to the objects they are instrumental in creating.136 The Mythogenic Structure contains both the longing for the future and the experience of the past; yet the past and the future are both colored by the eye-blink of the present, in a moment of revelatory inspiration. The Mythogenic Structure, being both diachronic and synchronic without mass or momentum, can thus pass to and from the classic and quantum worlds without the constraints of Heisenberg’s uncertainty barrier. The mythogene, the creating structure, is a-historical. It is timeless and was extant in human culture before history – in ille tempore.137 Mythoempirically this is expressed by the Midrash, which states that myths –

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with mythogenes as their building blocks – existed since time immemorial. They were meant to attest to the kingdom of God both in heaven and on earth.138 Myths were transmitted orally from father to son and then were inscribed in the Holy Scripture as the word of God (LȠȖȠȚ). Time, space, and causality were also mytho-empiricized by sacred texts. These were quite often anthropomorphized to make them acceptable by human beings. A striking example is the Heliopolitan theogony and cosmogony according to which Atum, the chief deity, ejaculated sperm from his outsize penis into his mouth and then spat out Shu and Tefnut, the first male and female Gods who proceeded to create the rest of the Gods and creation. Egypt’s livelihood depended on the tidal flows of the river Nile. Thus, a chain of strictly causal links is embedded in the Heliopolitan mythology effecting a bonding of causal chains in Egyptian agriculture. We have described in this introduction a tripartite mythological hierarchy which starts with the mythogene. The mythogene structure is the creative bonding between the basic dualities of life: subject and object, history and transcendence, and the creator and the work of art and the artifact. The mythologies follow. They are the sum total of mythogenes in a given culture and social character. Last is the Authentic Domain, the reservoir of all mythologies. Mythogenes that are not structured by inner revelation but by outer manipulation, are not authentic and do not form part of the mythologies and the Authentic Domain. Rather, they are forgotten in time and have no impact on the course of history.

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The Mythogenic Structure contains a complementarity of the longing for the future and the experience of the past represented graphically in Figure 0.9:

Fig 0.9: The complementarity of the longing for the future and the experience of the past Since the relationship between the future longing and the experience of the past is complementary and not dialectic, it keeps the longing and experience components of the mythogene intact, independent, and separate. We have presented the synapsis, the dividing interstice between the future and the past in which the elusive present is also evident. Moreover, the longing and the experience embedded in the mythogene is relegated to the synapsis by an individual experiencing an authentic revelation in the present. The longing and the experience should therefore be continuous in an unremitting present and should not be expended by fulfillment. Thus Prometheus is mytho-empirically punished because he implemented the quests of man for technological advancement by endowing him with fire and not letting man discover it maieutically by himself. Similarly, Epimetheus, by anchoring on the past, is betrothed to Pandora who brings him a dowry box full of woes, plagues and mischief. Only Elpida, hope, remains in Pandora’s Box. Consequently, longing and quests should not be spent by implementation. Mytho-empirically, Moses dies on Mount Nevo, his longing for the Promised Land perpetually fuelling the Mosaic creed. Dante places those whose yearnings have been fulfilled on the lowest

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echelons of Hell, and the savior in Dostoyevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor will not come as waiting for the Messiah nurtures faith in Him. As for the past, Mrs. Lot’s nostalgia for the bygone petrifies her. Therefore the authentic anchor on the revelatory present structures the creative mythogene. This is the mytho-empirical meaning of the Burning Bush, the linking of the future and the past by the perpetual creative fires of the authentic present. Since words and language are expressed sequentially, they are suitable to express diachronic space-time. However, synchronicity where inner vision is instantaneous is instrumental in structuring the mythogene by revelation. The revelatory mythogene draws, so to speak, from the implicate order, or from the superposition of the wave function, the raw material for the Mythogenic Structure. This is “tunneled” from the synchronic potentiality into the synaptic present, between the future longing and the experiential past within the mythogene. These, being diachronic, are well-served by language which is sequential by its very nature. Mathematics adeptly describes, and often predicts deterministically, the spatio-temporal phenomena. Yet as Gödel and Touring have rightly claimed, conceptual thinking which underlies the formation of mythogenes cannot be subject to computation. The structuring of a creative mythogene is the result of an indeterministic revelatory exposure to the potentiality of synchronicity.

Notes 1

Heidegger, M., Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwells, 1967); Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), 320-40. 2 Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. 3 Exodus Raba. 4 Talmud Bavli Pesachim, 6. 5 Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983). 6 Malachi 3: 6. 7 The Epic of Gilgamesh (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), 101. 8 Ibn Tabul, Y., Drosh Heftzi-ba, 3. 9 The I Ching, or Book of Changes, trans. Wilhelm Richard (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951). 10 Fraser, J. T., The Voices of Time (New York: George Braziller, 1966), 88. 11 Capek, M., “Time in Relativity Theory: Arguments for a Philosophy of Becoming” in ibid., 439. 12 Piaget, J, “Time Perception in Children,” in ibid., 204. 13 Ibid., 202.

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Hawking, S. and Penrose, R., The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 4. 15 Bohm, D., Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 203. 16 Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, 4. 17 Bohr, N., “Causality and Complementarity,” Philosophy of Science 4, no. 3 (1937): 291. 18 Piaget, J., The Construction of Reality in the Child (New York: Basic Books, 1954), 323- 349. 19 Shoham, S. G., The Myth of Tantalus (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), ch. 3. 20 Jonas, Gnostic Religion, appendix on Heidegger, 336. 21 Fraser, Voices of Time, 427. 22 Tillich, P., “The Eternal Now,” in The Meaning of Death, ed. H. Feifel (New York: McGraw Hill, 1959). 23 Stalin, J., “Dialectical and Historical Materialism,” in The Range of Philosophy, ed. H. H. Titus and M. H. Hepp (New York: Van Nostrand, 1970), 168. 24 Exodus 3: 14. 25 Exodus Raba. 26 Exodus 3: 2. 27 Greene, B., The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (New York: Knopf, 2004), 229. 28 This is denoted by Karl Popper as the third world. 29 Kipling, R., “If” in The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2001). 30 Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, 107, 130. 31 Genesis 1: 2. 32 Zaehner, R. C., Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 237. 33 Talbol, M., The Holographic Universe (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 14, 17. 34 Ibid., 50. 35 Lévi-Strauss, C., Le Cru et le Cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964), 9. 36 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus. 37 Shoham, S. G., The Violence of Silence: The Impossibility of Dialogue (Middlesex: Transaction Books; Northwood: Science Reviews Ltd., 1983). 38 Shoham, S. G., The Promethean Bridge (Toronto: de Sitter, 2004). 39 Bohr, “Causality and Complementarity”. 40 Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem: Schoken Publishing House, 1941), 350. 41 Ibid., 350. 42 Lang, A., Myth, Ritual, and Religion (New York: AMS Press, 1968). 43 Freud, S., “The Relation of the Poet to Daydreaming” in Collected Papers, vol. 4 (London: Hogarth Press, 1925), 182.

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Bachofen, J. J., Myth, Religion, and Mother-Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 73. 45 Eliade, M., The Myth of Eternal Return, trans. William R. Trask (New York: Pantheon Books, 1954), 34-48. 46 Jung, C. G., Psychological Types (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1944), 241, 615. 47 Shoham, S. G., Salvation Through the Gutters (Washington, D.C: Hemisphere Publications, 1979), 21. 48 Tennant, F. R., The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (New York: Schoken Press, 1968), 140. 49 Abraham, K., Selected Papers of Karl Abraham (London: Hogarth Press, 1927), 407. 50 Shoham, S. G., Valhalla, Calvary and Auschwitz (Cincinnati: Bowman & Cody Academic Publishing Inc., 1995), 25. 51 Lévi-Strauss, Le Cru et le Cuit, 9. 52 Piaget, J., Le Structuralisme (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1987), 5. 53 Ibid., 36, 37, 39. 54 Compare the views of Penrose on the natural selection of Algorithms: Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Penguin, 1991), 414. 55 Thompson, T. L., The Origin of Tradition of Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987). 56 Festinger, L., When Prophesy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (New York: Harper and Row, 1964). 57 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, 15. 58 Shoham, S. G., Le Sex Comme Appât (Paris: Editions l’Age d’homme, 1991), chapter 3, 6-7. 59 Freud, S., The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: The Basic Writings (New York Modern Library, 1938). 60 Erikson, E. H., Childhood and Society (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969). 61 Cohen, Y. A., The Transition from Childhood to Adolescence: Cross-Cultural Studies of Initiation Ceremonies, Legal Systems, and Incest Taboos (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1964). 62 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, ch.8. 63 Wellisch, E., Isaac and Oedipus: A Study in Biblical Psychology of the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Akedah (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954), 27 et.seq. 64 Ibid., 10. 65 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, 299. 66 Kafka, F., Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors, trans. Richard Winston and Clara Winston (New York: Schocken, 1977). 67 Kafka, F., Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Other Writings, ed. Helmuth Kiesel (New York: Continuum, 2002). 68 Wedekind, F., Spring Awakening, trans. Tom Osborn (London: Calder, 1977). 69 Bacon, F., A Study After Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope the Innocent X, collection of Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Burden, New York.

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70 Money, J., “Sexual Dictatorship, Dissidence, and Democracy,” The International Journal of Medicine and Law 1 (1978): 11. 71 Graves, R., The Greek Myths, vol. 1 (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1955), 91. 72 Sifre Deuteronomy 32. 73 Euripides, “Iphigenia in Aulis” in The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2 (New York: Random House, 1938), 323. 74 Ibid., 334. 75 Lottman, H. R., Albert Camus (New York: Doubleday, 1979). 76 Proverbs 14: 34. 77 Shoham, Salvation through the Gutters 78 Schachtel, E. G., Metamorphosis (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 60. 79 Shoham, Salvation through the Gutters, introd, chap. 1. 80 Bowlby, J., Attachment and Loss (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984), ch.11. 81 This stance is adhered to, inter alia, by Sullivan. See Munroe, R. L., Schools of Psychoanalytic Thought (New York: The Dryden Press, 1955), 360. 82 See Shoham, Salvation through the Gutters, 97; and Fairbairn, W. R. D., Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality (New York: Tavistock Publications, 1952), 11 83 Gordon, D. and Gergen, K. J., eds., The Self in Social Interaction (New York: J. Wiley, 1968), 3. 84 Freud, Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 147-150. 85 Shoham, Salvation through the Gutters, 151. 86 Erikson, Childhood, 253. 87 Shoham, Salvation Through the Gutters, 92. 88 Husserl, E., Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (London: Collier-MacMillan, 1962), 232. 89 Bergson, H., in Introduction to Metaphysics, writes, “Pure duration excludes all ideas of juxtaposition, reciprocal exteriority, and extension.” Cited in Readings in Twentieth Century Philosophy, eds, W. P. and G. Nakhnikian, (New York: Free Press, 1963), 49. 90 Koestler, A., Janus: A Summing Up (London: Hutchinson, 1978), 27. 91 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, ch.1. 92 Idel, M., “Metaphores et Pratiques Sexuelles dans la Cabale” in Mopsick, C., Lettre sur La Saintete (Paris: Verdier, 1986), 334. 93 Bakan, D., Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition (New York: Schoken Books, 1965), ch.33. 94 Lévi-Strauss, C., The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966). 95 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. 96 Hesiod, Theogony (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 527. 97 Penrose, Emperor’s New Mind, 250-251. 98 Hawking, S., A Brief History of Time (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1988). 99 Weinberg, S., The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 55-57.

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Genesis 2: 19 Vital, H., Etz Haim (Jerusalem: Research Centre of Kabbala, 1978), 35. 102 Tishby, I., The Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot in Lurianic Kabbala (Jerusalem: Schoken, 1942), 32. 103 Foerster, W., “The Hypostasis of the Archons” in Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 50. 104 Ranulf, S., The Jealousy of the Gods and the Criminal Law of Athens: A Contribution to the Sociology of Moral Indignation, vol. 1 (London: Williams & Norgate, 1933), 63. 105 Herodotus, The Greek Historians: The Complete and Unabridged Historical Works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Arrian, ed. Francis R. B. Godolphin (New York: Random House, 1942), 47. 106 Aeschylus, “The house of Atneus” in The Complete Greek Drama vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 1938), 83 107 Ibid., 84. 108 Drachman, A. B., Umdavalate Ahondlinger: Selected Topics (Copenhagen: 1911). 109 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil, 94. 110 Ibid., 94. 111 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, ch. 2. 112 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil, 148. 113 Scholem, G. G., Elements of the Kabbala and its Symbolism (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1976), 198. 114 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil, 122. 115 Scholem, Elements of the Kabbala and its Symbolism, 226-227. 116 Ibid., 142. 117 Foerster, W., “The Gospel of Truth” in Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 65. 118 “The Gospel of Philip” in ibid., 85. 119 Kierkegaard, S., Sickness unto Death (New York: Penguin Reprint Ed, 1986), 13. 120 Kierkegaard, S., Either/Or, trans. Walter Laurie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 159 et seq. 121 Graves, Greek Myths, 92-93. 122 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus. 123 Shoham, Promethean Bridge. 124 Fromm, E., Escape from Freedom (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942). 125 These are Karl Popper’s third world. 126 Exodus Raba 127 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus. 128 Vital, Etz Haim. 129 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil. 130 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. 131 Genesis 1: 1. 132 Fraser, Voices of Time, 22. 101

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Bergson, H., Time and Free Will: An Essay in the Immediate Data of Consciousness (London: Allen & Unwin, 1959). 134 Bergson, H., Creative Evolution (New York: Modern Library, 1944), 5-6. 135 Ibid., 76. 136 Kantarowich, A., The Ontological Priority of Structures: a Platonic Approach 137 Eliade, Myth of the Eternal Return. 138 Sefer Ha’aggada, introduction, A.

CHAPTER ONE THE DEVELOPMENTAL DUALITY OF DURATION, EXTENSION AND NOW

Clearly, nothing links enlightenment and the pain of cruelty. At least two kingdoms exist, if not more. But if there’s no God and force welds elements in repulsion, then what are words really, and from whence does their inner light come? —Jessey Coriecky, A Talk with Frederick Nietzsche. The perfect moment is the presence of grace out of time. —Jean Luc Picard, Stars Voyage.

We hold that the existence of beings and of the world, to be radically dualistic: diachronic and synchronic. This dualism is not a priori, but is based on human development and is attested to by mytho-empiricism. Our world, therefore, has five dimensions: three spatial and two temporal. Diachronicity is spatial whereas synchronicity is spaceless. This is mythoempiricized by the Greek Gods who are concrete and always in diachronic time. Olympus, the abode of the Gods, is one level up and Tartarus, Hell, is just an echelon down. The Judaic God, on the other hand, is abstract and synchronic: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, which in Himself and by Himself, constitutes a continuous present. On a continuum of rationality and intuition, diachronicity is largely rational and synchronicity is reached mainly by inner revelation, by intuition. Human consciousness, which is not scientifically assessed or measured, is the medium for reaching synchronicity.1 Consciousness is the reflection of the neo-Platonic Nous, the unitary anima mundi in human beings and all other life forms. All quantic potentialities such as Bohm’s implicate order and Schrödinger’s wave function, are timeless – temporality materializes only in the diachronic Aquarium where life form and objects can exist.

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Weinberg’s aesthetical mathematical theories apply only to diachronicity,2 as aesthetics from the Greek ĮȚıșİıȚȢ relates to the senses’ because it stems from external perception. Yet, the basic aesthetic symmetry of being is the complementarity between diachronicity and synchronicity through the bonding of the Mythogenic Structure. In synchronicity we have the potential of the implicate order and the probabilities spread over the range of the wave function of the representation. The mythogene, however, which is structured by revelation following the free choice to create, “collapses” the range of the possibilities to a well-defined choice. The classic diachronicity and the quantic synchronicity are symmetrically combined into an aesthetic bonding by means of the Mythogenic Structure. The primary human dualities stem from the symmetries of the body, from gender and sexual reproduction. Early orality which has no differentiation and therefore no temporal sequences is linked to synchronicity, whereas later orality when the separate self and objects are coagulated, is related to historic diachronicity. Mytho-empirically, the radical dualism of human existence and development is inherent in the Gnostic creeds. Kronos (Chronos) eating his children to protect himself is the mythoempirical projection of Greek diachronicity, whereas Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, the present-future connotation of Jehovah, is the mytho-empirical projection of sacred Judaic synchronicity. The complementarity between diachronicity and synchronicity within the mythogene is projected by the Burning Bush: the continuous bonding between history and synchronic transcendence. The Kabbala provides the mytho-empirical example of this linkage that is still in existence. It postulates a continuous agapic mating of two supernal countenances of abba (father) and imma (mother).3 The complementarity connection between the human consciousness and the artistic or aesthetic medium, is mytho-empiricized by the reproductive sexual mating in the Kabbala between the lower countenances of ze’er (male) and nukbah (female).4 It is also projected as the intercourse between the male and female cherubim on top of the Torah’s ark in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. Hence, the bonding of being is mytho-empirically depicted as an intra-mythogenic complementarity. The mythogene is conceived by revelation and is then embedded in the artistic medium effecting creativity. The processes of creativity are thence projected as an extra-mythogenic process whenever a creative endeavour is decided upon. These basic premises relate also mytho-empirically to God-man relationships as projected by Lurianic Kabbala and, subsequently, by some Hassidic doctrines. God’s cosmogenic endeavors suffered a catastrophe unpreventable by Him, the breaking of the vessels. As a result of this

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catastrophe, sparks of of Divinity were strewn into the mires of spatiotemporality.5 The Lurianic Kabbalist God was blemished and needed man to mend Him. Man has to sustain God and cure His imperfections. Without this mending, God would not be able to carry out His cosmogenic functions. Man, therefore, becomes a partner of God, albeit a junior partner, in His acts of continuous creation. This bold and, to be sure, sacrilegious doctrine makes mytho-empirical sense: synchronic God needs man, the arch anthropic mediator, and the originator of the mythogene, to create the diachronic aquarium, and its contents. This follows from our conception that the Nous, the anima mundi, is reflected in each individual being and is instrumental in the formation of mythogenes and the creation of art and artifacts. It is therefore fitting that Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, the Besht, declares that “God is the Shadow of Man.”6 God, the neoPlatonic Nous, the world soul as reflected in every one of us, is Husserl’s pure self,7 and our objectless inner self (ani).8 This world feels itself to be forever young as it is the reflection of the synchronic timeless anima mundi. The body, on the other hand, is subject to entropy and ages in diachronicity. The interaction between the pure inner self, the ani, and the atzmi, the embodied interactive self, generates the Mythogenic Structure, based on revelation. This Mythogenic Structure is the arch-mediator between all the human developmental dualities and is the blueprint for all creativity. This maieutic dialogue between synchronicity and diachronicity, mytho-empiricized by the Burning Bush, is the essence of viable life and creativity. The alternative is sinking into the past with Mrs. Lot, Orpheus or the catastrophic hubris of revolution, which sacrifices the manageable possibilities of the present to the fatae morganae of an elusive future. Albert Camus sensed the vicissitudes of revolutions when he observed that the French Revolution brought the Reign of Terror, the Nazi Revolution culminated in Auschwitz, and the Communist Revolution had its purges and Gulags.

The Personality Structures We hold that space and time is related to the personality structure and culture. Our personality theory identifies two opposing personality types: the participant and the separant. We define participation as the identification of the self with a person, with an object, a life form, or a symbol outside the self. In the participation process, the self strives to lose its separate identity by fusing with external entities. Separation, the

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opposite vector, is the self's attempt to sever and differentiate itself from its surrounding life forms and objects. Our personality theory posits three main developmental phases. The first is the process of birth, the second, the crystallization of an individual ego by the molding of the ego boundary, and the third, a corollary of socialization, the achievement of an “ego identity.” The desire to overcome the separating and dividing pressures never leaves the human individual. The endeavor to partake in a unifying whole is always present and takes many forms; if one avenue towards its realization becomes blocked, it surges out through another channel. Total participation or fusion is, by definition, unattainable. Countering separation vectors, both instinctual and interactive, augment the impossible objective of participation. At any given moment of our lives, there is a disjuncture, a gap between our desire for participation and our subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims. We denote this gap the “Tantalus Ratio,” that is, the relationship between the longed-for participatory goal and the distance from it, as perceived by the ego.9 Another basic premise is the fixating of separant and participant personality types. This relates to the developmental stage of later orality, when a separant self crystallizes out of the earlier undifferentiated whole. There is an ontological baseline used by the non-self, the outside object, to define the self. The coagulation of the self marks the starting point for the most basic developmental dichotomy. We distinguish two separant developmental phases: from birth and early orality to the point at which the ego boundary is formed around the emerging individual separatum, and from later orality onwards. In the first phase, the separate self does not register any fixations that occur, and no character traits are imprinted on the developing personality. The self is not capable of discerning between itself and outside objects which are the sources of the traumas that cause fixation. The entity experiencing the trauma is a non-differentiated whole. However, if the traumatic fixation occurs at the later oral phase, the self may be able to attribute the cause of pain and deprivation to its proper source: the objects. We therefore propose a personality typology which is anchored on this developmental dichotomy of pre- and post-differentiation of the self.10 The process of molding the separate individual determines the nature and severity of the fixation, which in turn determines the placement of a given individual on the personality type continuum. However, the types themselves are fixed at different stages in the developmental chronology; the participant at pre-differentiated early orality and the separant after the formation of the separant self. The participant vectors influence both these

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personality types, but the quest for congruity manifests itself differently with each polar personality type on our continuum. The participant aims to achieve congruity by effecting and annihilating himself, by melting back into the object and regaining the togetherness and non-differentiation of early orality. The separant type aims to achieve congruity by over powering, or overwhelming the object.

Social Characters When our core personality continuum is applied to the characteristics of groups or cultures, it relates to a social character. The family and other socializing agents transmit the norms and values of the group, which the individual then internalizes. It is important to note at the outset, however, that a social character as the composite portrait of a culture is never pure. It portrays only essentials, not peripheral traits. This social character may then be classified along a continuum similar to our personality core continuum. As discussed in the Introduction, the separant personality pole is denoted as Sisyphean, after the Greek stone-manipulating Titan, and the participant is denoted as Tantalic, after the stationary, inner-directed, and abstraction-anchored Demigod. Therefore, the social character constitutes the cultural dimension of the personality continuum. The classification of cultures along a continuum and their relationship to a given personality structure necessitates two basic assumptions: first, that cultures possess generalized traits that may be measured and ranked on a predetermined typology or scale, and second, that these traits are related to the character of the individual. By adopting both these assumptions, we find ourselves in either good or bad company, depending on preference or value judgment. Spengler and Toynbee have adhered to both these assumptions in their works on the growth and decline of cultures. Spengler compares the ages of cultures to the ages of man. “Every culture,” he states, “passes through the age phases of the individual man. Each has its childhood, youth, manhood and old age.”11 Spengler and Toynbee thus introduced the dynamic temporal dimension into the study of culture. The current anthropological conception of culture as a “superorganic”12 pattern of symbols, generated by the interaction of groups and individuals, and transmitted by learning, lends itself to abstract classification. The crucial question is whether the patterns are Platonic ideals, abstractions projected by the mind of the anthropologist onto the rarified ether, or whether they are generalized descriptions of processes that actually take place in societies. If culture is “what binds men together,” by means of

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“symbolating” human interaction13 (through relating forms and appearances to qualities and attributes), then it already involves, by definition, the abstraction and ordering of gestalts.14 In other words, the processes of cultures are manifested in arranged patterns. This idea may also be gleaned from some of the key concepts in the definition of culture. A symbol is a value or meaning-laden sign,15 and meanings and value judgments are readily expressed in generalized patterns. The superorganic is structured by rules and the means chosen to achieve cultural goals are regulated by norms; yet rules and norms are constructs that are choice objects for paradigms and classifications. Prima facie, contrary to the vehement objections of some ethnographers, we accept the feasibility of ordering cultures into generalized configurations and patterns or, to use Spengler’s decorative language, of “painting the portrait of a culture.”16 Ruth Benedict and her cultural-relativist colleagues have demonstrated how patterns may be identified through the direct observation of cultures. Furthermore, Lévi-Strauss and his structuralist school of thought have shown that cultural processes in “savage” societies coincide with the classificatory passage from things to symbols, notably the totemic generalizations that shape the shift from the concrete to the abstract.17 The structuralists thus identify not only patterns in societies, but whole systems of functions that underlie overt cultural processes. For Benedict, cultural patterns stem from “unconscious canons of choice that develop within the culture.”18 They select some segment of the arc of possible human behavior, and in so far as they achieve integration, its institutions tend to further the expression of its selected segment and to inhibit opposite expressions.19 These habits, symbols, values, cultural goals, and the means by which to achieve them, crystallize into “total culture patterns,”20 through which cultures may be identified. Ordering cultural patterns into schemes, paradigms, continua, and matrices may vary according to the purpose or theoretical orientation of the observer. There can be no universal criterion for measuring the validity of the classification of culture patterns. The value of a classification should be determined by the specific aims and needs of a given theoretical concern. This is aptly stated by Lévi-Strauss: The real question is not whether the touch of a woodpecker’s beak does in fact cure toothache. It is rather whether there is a point of view from which the woodpecker’s beak and a man’s tooth can be seen as “going together” [the use of this congruity for therapeutic purposes being only one of its possible uses] and whether some initial order can be introduced into the universe by means of these groupings.21

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We observe in the literature, a vast array of classifications of cultures that serve as an ad hoc aim of the researcher. On the micro level, we find Francis L. K. Hsu’s classification of cultures by their dominant dyads. Japan, according to his criteria, is a father-son dominated society, whereas American culture is dominated by a husband-wife dyad.22 On the macro level, Rieseman and his associates identified the traditional, inner-directed societies within a scheme related to transitional growth and economic development.23 The typology that is closest in its general objectives to our own is of course that presented by Benedict following Spengler’s “cultural relativism.”24 The cultural relativist method of identifying dominant social characters within a culture, which may be arranged between two poles of a continuum, suits our methodological purposes. With this method, we can characterize a culture according to its position on the continuum. This position is never static, because it shifts with time and social change. Next we address the nature and viability of a common social character. To Fromm, a social character does not consist of those peculiarities that differentiate people, but “of that part of their character structure that is common to most members of the group.”25 The social character is therefore a common attribute of individuals, ingrained in them by socializing agents, which displays the characteristics of a culture. Riesman, who uses Fromm’s definition of social characters, mutatis mutandis, relies on Erikson for the sources and genesis of the social character. Erikson claims, “Systems of child training … represent unconscious attempts at creating out of human raw material that configuration of attitudes, which is the optimum under the tribes’ particular natural conditions and economic historic necessities.”26 Erikson’s blending of social Darwinism with Marxist material dialectics is too concrete and harsh to explain the volatile concept of social character. We prefer to see the social character from Lévy-Bruhl’s27 point of view, as a “collective representation,” in which acts, symbols, and transitions – from the concrete to the abstract – are displayed in the interaction of groups with their individual members or with other groups. This collective representation involves the transmission of the social character from the group to its young, and from generation to generation, through a process of learning and socialization, and not by biological heredity as Jung28 postulated. The social character is the psychological character type, as displayed by a collective, and not by individuals who comprise this collective. Yet, when the group implants this social character into the individual, it provides the necessary link between the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of the personality structure. Every classification fulfils the specific aims of a given theoretical structure. Our purpose is to determine the interrelationship

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of the Sisyphean-Tantalic personality type continuum with the separantparticipant continuum of cultures. Consequently, we must define our cultural continuum and describe the polarities of our social character. This, to be sure, is no mean task. The author sat once in a taverna in the Plaka, on the slope that leads uphill to the Acropolis, which overlooks Athens. He was reading Shestov’s Athens and Jerusalem and was struck by the eloquent contrast between Socrates, “The man who is led by reason alone,” and the biblical Psalmist who “Cries to the Lord out of the depths of his human nothingness.”29 Looking beyond the ruins of the Agora towards the horizon, he realized that there was a striking similarity between the hills around Athens and the hills of Judea around Jerusalem. The same searing heat, the same bare rocks, and the same cruelty of nature served as a physical setting for both the activist, object-manipulating, postSocratic Greeks and the quietist, contemplative, and self-effacing Judea of Ecclesiastes. The “portrait of a culture,” however, depicts only the predominant cultural traits and patterns, though every culture is perforce pluralistic and displays, to varying degrees, aspects of the opposite polar type. This is the main reason why a continuum is the most suitable means of describing the polarity and the range of social characters. Also, some basic ideas and innovative modes of thought and observation, displaying either participant or separant attitudes, may or may not have been representative of a given society at a given time. In all likelihood, many great figures, studied to this day with reverence, were eccentric recluses, shunned by their contemporaries. We shall therefore use the ideas and insights of such thinkers to help us formulate our concepts, yet we have to allow for their minority views in their respective societies. The polarization into Sisyphean-separant and Tantalic-participant social characters has influenced the Weltanschauung of observers from time immemorial. Parmenides founded the Eleatic School of Philosophy on the premise that reality is static, which is the basic tenet of inaction common to the participant ideas of Taoism, Hinayana Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and the Quietist schools of Hassidic Judaism. Heraclitus the Ephesian, on the other hand, postulated a universality of flux, which is the strife between opposites that sweeps everything into a dynamic flow of change. This is the basis for Hegelian dialectics, as well as of the Marxian creed of historical materialism, which postulates salvation through action. The first characteristic that distinguishes a separant culture is therefore an orientation towards action. The second contrast is between unity and plurality. The participant culture decrees that one has to rid one’s thoughts of illusory perceptions of the senses in order to reach the monistic wholeness behind the deceptions of plurality. Consequently, the Parmenidean

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sphere, representing all-present wholeness, is also the three-dimensional mandala, the prevailing symbol of the Far Eastern participant cultures, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The separant conception of reality follows Heraclitus, who perceived the universe as ordered into measured pluralities that follow the universal formula of sequence and dynamic harmonies within interrelated boundaries. The third polarity contrasts the ideal of constancy in the participant cultures with the idea of relationship in the separant cultures. If plurality is illusion and the veil of Maya, and the sole reality is unity, then all relationships are also illusory, because unity cannot interact with itself. Furthermore, for participant cultures, relationship is not only deceptive, but also the source of evil, sorrow, and pain. For separant cultures, on the other hand, relations with space and time and other human beings are the frame of reference for human life, and have to be coped with through integration, adjustment, and solidarity. The fourth contrast relates to the emphasis that separant cultures put on reason, on those formulae and models that explain man and his universe. Participant cultures tend to distrust and reject logic, relying more on intuition and revelation. Indeed, Spengler colors the following statement by a participant value judgment when he says, “Reason, system and comprehension kill as they ‘cognize.’ That which is cognized becomes a rigid object, capable of measurement and subdivision. Intuitive vision, on the other hand, incorporates the details in a living, inwardly-felt unity.”30 The fifth polarity is that between the separant tool orientation, i.e., a culture geared toward the manipulation of objects, and the participant symbol-oriented culture in which ideas and belief systems are centered on inwardly-contemplating individuals immersed in “doing their own thing.”

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The five polar characteristics of social characters are summarized in Figure 1.1. These patterns are by no means exhaustive but rather illustrative. They point out the highlights of a given social character, but they do not constitute a precise definition. Separant

Participant

Object-manipulation Reason Flux Plurality Action

Self-manipulation Intuition Constancy Unity Resignation

Fig. 1.1: The five polar characteristics of social characters Our use of a continuum to describe social characters means that no culture may be tagged by one definitive label. Consequently, in every participant social character there are separant patterns, and vice versa. In Judaism, for instance, Yom Hakipurim, The Day of Atonement, is a participant ritual in which the individual strives to partake of Divinity through self-humiliation and self-effacement. Yom Hapurim, the feast celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from Haman, Ahasuerus’ evil wazir, is written in Hebrew letters like the Day of Atonement with one syllable less: ki. This led the Lurianic Kabbalists to link the two holidays; the lots cast by children and adults in the festival of Purim were compared to the lots of life and death cast by God on Yom Hakipurim, the Day of Atonement. Yet Purim is a separant ritual of frenzy, in which individuals strive to reach each other through the ecstatic togetherness of wine, song, and dance.31 The pure separant or participant culture does not exist in reality; the signs that indicate the presence of one or another type of social character may be arranged on several continua, representing various cultural areas. On the separant extreme, we place the northwestern European societies imbued with the Protestant Ethic, which burst forth, full-blown, in the flames of the “American Dream.” On the participant pole, we find cultures dominated by the Hinayana Buddhist doctrines of quietist self-annihilation. It might well be that the separant-activist trends of northwestern European cultures have their origins in the ethos of the Germanic tribes, who conquered their way across Europe, carrying Thor’s hammer as a symbol of power. They even dispensed with the fear of the hereafter by having Odin, the God of Battle, send his armor-clad Vlakyrie maidens to

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carry the slain warriors to eternal bliss in Valhalla. There is no doubt, however, that the achievement-motivated, power-backed manipulation of less powerful societies and the scientific conquest of nature, which marked the advent of the northwestern European societies in the last centuries, have been boosted by the Protestant Ethic. A separant trend runs through Luther’s sanctification of work as a sacred calling, Calvin’s stress of achievement as proof of predestined worth, Hegel’s action as the necessary bridge between subject and object, and Marx’s decree to harness all means of production in order to mold man’s (dialectical) future. The separant culture is Sisyphean because the aim of incorporating spatiotemporality within itself through total control is unattainable. Hyperactivity very often channels itself into routine and aimless ritualism; social engineering is more likely to lead to the social death of totalitarianism, or the robotic zombies of George Orwell’s 1984, and the scientific manipulation of matter seems to achieve the suffocation of air, the hothouse effect that is melting the North and South poles and threatens to flood many continents, the death of water, and the perfection of artifacts for mass murder. Yet, the separant strives endlessly to reach the perfection of Utopia with the dialectics of action, like the continuous rolling of the Sisyphean rock. At this stage, we may anticipate critical reactions to the focus on religion as an anchor for the identification of cultures along the space continuum. This focus is warranted by theoretical considerations and empirical findings. First, religious affiliation has been found to correlate with many attitudes and modes of behavior, as well as with the structure and contents of social institutions.32 Religion serves as a significant identification tag, although many other social institutions, norms, and cultural goals in a given culture are also relevant to our classification. Most, if not all of our pairs of polar patterns of social characteristics are reflected in the religious doctrine of a given culture. Most of human history, to risk making a sweeping generalization, has been related, influenced, and often totally dominated by religion. The “unchartered region of human experience,” to use Gilbert Murray’s fortunate phrase, is the domain of religion.33 Although the areas of our “positive knowledge” are greatly expanding, unchartered areas of confusion and chaos govern most of the swift human journey from an involuntary beginning to an unknown end. Consequently, religion has reigned supreme in human societies throughout history. Even Marxism has been denoted as a “secular religion,” and Bertrand Russell has made the following ingenious analogies:

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Yahweh = Dialectical Materialism The Messiah = Marx The Elect = The Proletariat The Church = The Communist Party The Second Coming = The Revolution Hell = Punishment of the Capitalists The Millennium = The Communist Commonwealth34 Yet, if we try to place Communist China, which adheres even today to the Marxist secular religion, on our continuum, we may still decide that its position is not on the far separant pole, because it still has some vestiges of the Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian participant social characteristics, although it has surged remarkably into capitalist industry in the last two decades. As for empirical evidence, we have ample proof that Catholics’ otherworldly orientation, their conception of labor as a curse, a corollary of Original Sin (traits which are, incidentally, participant and quietist), make them less achievement-motivated than Protestants.35 This places them a considerable distance from the separant extreme of our continuum. On the participant extreme of our continuum, we have placed Hinayana Buddhism, of the Southern Theravada school. The Hinayana is the “small vehicle,” as condescendingly labeled by the Mahayana Buddhists, who called themselves “the great vehicle.”36 The Hinayana doctrine rejects temporal existence as a burden because all action and interaction are irritation, friction, and suffering (dukkha). Second, the samsara, the cycle of growth, maturation and decay, which is the essence of the individual’s separate condition, produces disharmony and desire, the harbingers of evil. Third, plurality is an illusion generated by the perception of the separate self. Nirvana, therefore, is achieved by the annihilation of the individual self, “awakening” into the blissful reality of unity.37 At least four of our five main patterns of the participant social character can be identified in the Hinayana doctrine: quietist inaction, rejection of temporality, self-effacement, and the belief in the omnipresence of unity behind the veil of plurality. Although the Hindu Yoga is near to the participant pole, it is somewhat removed from the extreme position of the Hinayana. In Yoga, for instance, the temporal world is vile and full of suffering and pain but it is, nonetheless real and not illusory.38 Another aim of Yoga, although it is quietist in essence, is not to annihilate the separate self, but to separate spirit (Purusha) and matter (Prakrti).39 Mahayana, the northern school of Buddhism, has more separant traits than Hinayana or Hindu Yoga, and is therefore further removed from the participant pole. Suzuki, expounding the Mahayana doctrine, says, “In Mahayana Buddhism, each soul is not only related as such to the highest

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reality, but also to one another in the most perfect network of infinite mutual relationship.”40 Relationship with outside objects is thus real and possible, and so separant action and interaction are generated. Mahayana also lowered the Hinayana emphasis on dukkha, the pain of interaction, and preached with the zeal becoming of a Calvin, “Work out your salvation with diligence.”41 Zen Buddhism, which evolved from Mahayana doctrine is even more separant. It seems that Zen influenced the rise of the business class in nineteenth-century Japan. “Zen discipline,” says Suzuki, “is simple, direct and self-reliant.” Satori (individual enlightenment) is attained, not through ritual, but by “one’s inner life.”42 This idea is rather similar to the Protestant Ethic. Indeed, Zen flourished in full bloom in Japan, the most separant culture of the Far East, which cherishes self-reliance, responsibility, cleanliness, order, and energetic performance.43 Thus, we arrive at the basic assumption for our context: the German social character is situated on the extreme separant Sisyphean pole of our continuum whereas, the Jewish social character, although not on the extreme pole, is quite close to the participant-Tantalic ideal type.

Time, Space, and Social Characters We will examine some of the attitudes of social characters to time and space. Clocks, the timetable, the time chart, the calendar, are all powerful. He who controls time controls the world. “Time is money” and money, according to the separant Protestant Ethic, is the proof of Divine grace. The separant linearity of time looks to the future. The past is dead, ili Fat mat, as the Arab proverb says, and past deeds are forgotten and buried. The ability to schedule times and dates for prospective events gives political and social power. Oracles and prophets controlled and manipulated kings because they foresaw the sequences of events and hence conquered time. A mytho-empirical support of our premise is that Chronos, i.e. time, was one of the cruelest and most ruthless gods in the separant Greek Pantheon. Armed with a sickle, Chronos, a later epiphany of Cronus, the original son of Uranus, the Sky God, castrated his father, Uranus, and killed him. Time thus emasculates the past makes it impotent and annihilates it. Chronos tried to protect his dominion by devouring his children. His murdered father, Uranus, and Mother Earth prophesized that one of his children would dethrone him. These are the carnivorous sequences of separant time which devour the future and annihilate it into the past. But all the defensive precautions taken by Chronos to safeguard his reign were in vain; he was defeated by his son, Zeus, and struck by a

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thunderbolt.44 The separant projection of Divine time is an endless, cruel succession of sequences, one trying to control and conquer the other. Yet the supreme deity (Zeus) ordains that no temporal sequence can hold its own against a future sequence. The future devours the present, which is nullified into the past. The conquering, control, and subjugation of time is a Sisyphean task always aspired to, but never achieved, even by the Olympians. The participant, on the other hand, denies the existence of objective time. He may even rely on the general theory of relativity according to which the measure of time is relative, among other things, to the observer and measurer. Moreover, a Kantian idealist would claim that time and space are frameworks within the human mind by which man structures his observations of his surroundings.45 As we have shown elsewhere,46 man’s mind is a unique bio-psycho-social configuration. The idealist’s conception of time, being a structure of the mind, is therefore unique for each individual. Time, for the participant, is not only subjective; its conception by one individual is unique and not transferrable to another. For the participant, even a shallow self-analysis reveals the subjectivity of time. For example, a boring task seems to take a long time whereas a monotonous time period is remembered as being of shorter duration. Contrarily, a stimulating and interesting task seems to take less time and a thrilling period is remembered has having lasted longer. The participant creeds project temporality on the vile and profane attributes of God. The Gnostics, for instance, attributed temporality to the flawed Demiourgos in contrast with the timeless and pure upper Ogdoad. Irenaeus says: When the Demiurge further wanted to imitate also the boundless, eternal, infinite and timeless nature of the upper Ogdoad (the original eight Aeons in the Pleroma), but could not express their immutable eternity, being as he was a fruit of defect, he embodied their eternity in times, epochs, and great numbers of years, under the delusion that by the quantity of times he could represent their infinity. Thus truth escaped him and he followed the lie. Therefore his work shall pass away when the times are fulfilled.47 In similar vein, the mystic, Meister Eckhart, wrote: Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. But there is no greater obstacle to God than time. And not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections; not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time.48

Time and space constitute the two most formidable barriers between the participant mystic and his God.

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The Tantalic method that breaks through God’s temporal barrier is convoluted; the individual is able to return to the totality of unity by a reversal from temporality to no time, and the retreat from the vicissitudes of interaction with one’s surroundings to the pre-differentiated perfect beginning. This quest for the reversal of being to non-being, stated by us as the participant core vector of the human personality, is projected onto transcendence as the longing to be reabsorbed within the perfect timelessness of Divinity. The participant core personality vector induces us to remember and cherish our earlier developmental periods as better and blissful. Hence the participant deity stems from the perfect beginnings before time. The participant religions anchor their rituals on techniques of “going back.”49 The Australian Kunapipi initiation rite depicts a regressus ad uterum – a symbolic leaving of the temporal existence and being reborn into a spiritual nature.50 In India, during the hiranyagarbha (golden foetus) ceremony, a person is squeezed into a golden vessel (symbolizing the womb) that is shaped like a (sacred) cow, and re-emerges and is symbolically regenerated into a new mode of being.51 Taoism stresses the importance of “embryonic breathing,” a means by which man returns to his early mode of perfect existence. A Taoist text says that: “By going back to the base, by returning to the origin, one drives away old age, one returns to the state of a foetus… that is why the (Buddha) Ju-lai-Tathagata, in his great mercy, revealed the method for the (alchemical) work by fire and taught man to re-enter the womb in order to reconstitute his (true) nature and (the fullness of) his portion of life.”52 Here we have an exquisite example of the equivalence of regression back in time to the perfect beginning, or to no-time, and the achievement of the sacred Tao. This supports our hypothesis as to the link between Tantalic transcendence and the participant quest to regress back to timelessness and hence to the eternity of early orality and in utero. Indeed, in Taosim the return to the womb signifies the taking part again in the “Great One.”53 However, the most radical going back in time is advocated by the Yoga Sutras, described by Eliade: The method is to cast off from a precise instant of Time, the nearest to the present moment, and to retrace the Time backward (pratiloman or “against the stream”) in order to arrive ad originem, the point where existence first “burst” into the world and unleashed Time. Then one rejoins that paradoxical instant before which Time was not, because nothing has been manifested… thereby one attains to the beginning of Time and enters the Timeless - the eternal present which preceded the temporal experience inaugurated by the “fall” into human existence. In other words, it is possible, stating from any moment of temporal duration, to exhaust that

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The extremely participant Yoga Sutras project the individual’s early oral fixations and timeless pre-birth bliss in utero on transcendence. Thus timelessness becomes the participant ideal. Yet, because the actual reversal to the no-time of early orality and in utero is Tantalically impossible, it is projected as Divine perfection and as a model of the flawless Buddha himself. The separant is not only anchored on the sequences of time, but is actually obsessed with it. In the Sisyphean achievement-orientated cultures, punctuality is praised as a virtue and the profitable use of time is cherished as a sign of grace. Time is the “art of the Swiss,” and as such, it is no accident that they invented the cuckoo clock, the super exact chronometer, and salvation through temporal success. In the United States the Protestant Ethic has turned achievement and success into a religion in itself. Except for short spells of participant soul-searching, as in the late Sixties, the Horatio Alger ideal of rags to riches is as strong as ever in the United States, as it is in most other Occidental countries. The most pertinent portrayal of a carnivorous go-getter symbolizing the archetypal separant frontier spirit is the Rumanian poet, Radu Stanca’s depiction of Buffalo Bill planning the biggest heist of them all: the stealing of time. “Tonight”, he confides to his co-bandits, “we shall not take the money of passengers and play around with a girl who hides her gold medallion between her breasts. Tonight the mail carriages will carry the mightiest prince of them all. Tonight we are going to steal time.”55 Buffalo Bill then describes time to his brigands as a fabulously rich miser who guards his seconds jealously. Time has everything: herds of noble horses, caves of sweet and bitter wines, passions that no woman can resist. Buffalo Bill then urges his brigands “to pierce a hole in eternity and snare and catch time so that we become the mightiest and richest of all bandits.” This depiction of time being stolen by the archetypal bandit of the American West, which epitomizes, in turn, the Sisyphean frontier ideal of America, has a mytho-empirical vigor. Time means wealth, power, wine, women and song. By conquering time one achieves all the material goals of the world. Similarly, the Kiplingesque empire builder has to “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds of distance run.”56 Time is the stern judge of achievers. A limited span of time is given to achieve one’s separant goals. Consequently, a waste of even the minutest instant is a sin. Marxism

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posited time and its experience, i.e. history, as the backbone of its creed. Time, as historical necessity, was the guide for the communist to achieve his aims; it was also his judge when he failed and his executioner after he confessed and recanted his mistakes. The sheer existence of temporal failures (sinners) is deleted from official records and encyclopedias. Separant time is, like Chronos its archetypal deity and namesake; it devours its offspring. For the participant, time, like space, is the outcome of interactive relationships which are feasible only after the ego has been crystallized and the objects exist. Time is viable only within the object relationships and the object fixations of plurality. Hence time is, in essence, a separant artifact which cohabits reluctantly with participant personality types, and is derogated, frowned upon, and rejected by Tantalic cultures. For the participant fixated on the pantheism of the early orality and on non-being in utero, time is linked to the catastrophic expulsion from the blissful selfsufficiency of the womb and the fall from the omnipresent graces of pantheistic early orality. Hence the participant’s God is a projection of a timeless unity because both in early orality and in utero, there is no plurality to affect the relationship sequences which constitute temporality. Time is viable only when an observer can perceive sequences, motion, and relationships between himself and his surrounding objects. In utero and in early orality, an ego that can observe has not as yet been coagulated and separated from its surroundings. No distinct objects, or others, have been contrasted with the ego so that it may actually create time by interacting with the objects, or others. Merleau-Ponty has argued effectively that for the self by itself, there is no time, and the object qua object, is timeless. Temporality is created-through the interrelationship between self and object.57 This premise is expressed clearly and simply by Plato: Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fullness upon a creature was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call time. For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he ‘was’, he ‘is’, he ‘will be’ but the truth is that ‘is’ alone is properly attributed to him, and that ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those

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For the participant Plato, the ideal being (God) has no relations, is motionless and hence, timeless. Only the imitation of movement, the illusion of plurality, and the artifacts of relationship can produce sequence and time. A wide range of philosophers from Parmenides to Hegel have recognized that the conception of time is related to the discrete division of the world into discernible sequences. The denial of plurality and division would lead, according to this stance, to the denial of time. Heidegger has undertaken the phenomenological analysis of the collapse of objective time because man, existentially, does not partake in it. The future is “not yet” whereas the past is “already not.” The movement from one negation to the other is through the blink of an eye (Augenblick) of the present moment, which has no duration and constitutes no time at all. The transition from the future to the past is through a spanless present. Hence, according to the participant Heidegger, the discrete separant passage of time is a Verfallenheit, a decline, into inauthenticity.59 In addition, the inauthentic temporality of the achievement-oriented Sisyphean also stems from the frantic race to achieve a goal while disregarding the means by which to do this. When the intermediate goal is achieved, it is filed, neglected, and forgotten as the rat-race pushes the achieving Sisyphean to another goal. Thus he is ever driven to possess an unachievable goal while not being interested, involved or absorbed by the processes which lead to the goal. Thus the Sisyphean separant is alienated from both his life goals and the means to achieve them. He is, therefore, ever immersed in nonauthentic time. Heidegger’s authentic time is a revelatory flow of inner awareness unrelated to the sequences of the world of objects. This Heideggerean inner time, which is actually timelessness when projected onto transcendence, is very much like the a-temporality of pantheism. When the self, God, and the objective world are merged into a pantheistic whole, there can be no relationships and interactions to effect the sequences of time. Indeed, the pantheistic God-world of Spinoza is atemporal and what seems to us to be a sequential succession of time, is illusory. As time seems to be a limiting factor for the Sisyphean type to achieve material goals, and a hindrance to the Tantalic type to be immersed in unity, both seek to liberate themselves from their temporal confines in order to achieve their divergent core personality aims. The separant seeks exit from time so that he may travel back and forth in it, manipulate it by supernatural means, sorcery, witchcraft, fantasy, in order to overcome the temporal barriers against the realization of his aims. The

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separant arriviste credo is also not to look back on time. The past is dead, the present is unimportant but the future is crucial. Giovanni Papini, the Italian nationalist activist, detested his country’s past. He resented the multitudes of tourists visiting Italy for the art of the Renaissance. He much preferred the negotiations of investors betting on Italy’s present and future. Sartre points out to his three Sisyphean manipulators in No Exit that, although the door leading out of their spatio-temporal hell may be physically open, they can never escape their impasse.60 In the here–and– now, man cannot solve his problems by escaping space, time and his human environment. There can be no exit from space and no exit from time. Buber is somewhat more optimistic. He envisages the possibility of emerging from the stultifying I-It relationships with one’s objective environment to reach an I-Thou dialogue with man, flora, fauna, and objects. Through the I-Thou relationship, man breaks the yoke of temporality and catches a glimpse of eternity.61 Indeed, the Hassidic movement preached the doctrine of “worship in the concrete” which makes the transition of the initiates from one space-time configuration to another feasible. Hassidism and other ecstatic religions which postulate the transmigration of souls through trance and possession in order to achieve material and manipulative aims, constitute a separant projection to overcome spatio-temporal barriers and to control one’s objective surroundings through the good services, miracles, and magic of the supernatural powers.62 In contradistinction to the separant exstasis, the Greek leaving of time, the participant enthousiasmos indicates the exit of man’s soul from his body and its merging with Divinity. Etymologically, enthousiasmos means the fusion with God. This also signifies the participant meaning of the concept. Of all the Greek philosophers, Parmenides seems to be the most participant as far as temporality is concerned. Parmenides states, inter alia: “One way only is left to be spoken of, that it is; and on this way are many signs that what is uncreated and [hence] imperishable, is entire, immovable and without end.”63 If (real) being is continuous and comprises unity as well as motionlessness, then there can be no discrete relational sequences of time. The timeless uniqueness of being is clearly projected by Parmenides onto transcendence as a single, omnipresent, stationary, and eternal Divinity. It is one of the more pronounced illustrations of our contention that the ontology of man is being projected on the core attributes of God. The German idealists, Leibniz and Hegel, seem to have rejected the reality of time. Leibniz states:

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Chapter One In consulting the notion which I have of every true proposition, I find that every predicate, necessary or contingent, past, present, or future, is comprised in the notion of the subject, and I ask no more… The proposition in question is of great importance, and deserves to be well established, for it follows that every soul is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God; that it is not only immortal and so to speak impossible, but that it keeps in its substance traces of all that happens to it.64

To Leibniz, time seems to be condensed in the determined becoming of the subject. There can be no interaction between monads (subjects, individual souls) hence there can be no real sequences of time, but only a subjective awareness of the flow of a continuous present. Hegel conceives of being as an “indeterminate immediate.”65 This precludes the ontological reality of past or future - only the continuous present constitutes true being. Hence the true participant being extracts himself from the sequences of separant time. The present, which is a Sisyphean nothingness, becomes the sole Tantalic reality. True being is therefore linked by the participant Weltanschauung to the present. The existentialist conception of being, which is evidently fiercely Tantalic, projects a God who is not so much timeless as continuously present. Gabriel Marcel posits both the reality of being and Divinity outside of time.66 The religious message of Paul Tillich is that man has to extricate himself from the bondage of time and the false present between the future and the past and submerge himself into the continuous present of the “eternal now” which is also the theophany of God.67 The participation in unity is effected, according to Tillich, by an enthousiasmos from the profane temporal sequences and involvement, into a continuous present which is also the temporal dimension of God. Tillich does not project his personal presence of being onto God; he uses a shortcut by which the presence of being is manifest in the eternal now of Divinity. How does one come by this enthousiasmos and continuous present? Not by strenuous efforts; one may be metamorphosized into it by lack of awareness. Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan advises the reader that to reach the other reality, which is very much like our non-temporal present, one has to be inattentive: Like the image created by dust particles in the eyelashes, or the blood vessels in the cornea of the eye, a worm-like shape that can be seen as long as one is not looking at it directly; but the moment one tries to look at it, it shifts out of sight with the movement of the eyeball.68

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The continuous present cannot be pursued in the manner of a Sisyphean rat-race to conquer time, but by a participant total submission. Bergson’s durée réel - the continuous flow of intuitive temporal awareness - is also a medium of enthousiasmos because through it one may be exposed to the atemporal infinite and absolute.69 In the Far East one may have a notion of timelessness, although one cannot have an image of it. One may analyze the abstract idea of boundlessness, but not have a percept of it. Kant has already demonstrated that man cannot conceive of an uncaused cause. Hence man is enmeshed in time, space, and causality and cannot grasp with his cognitive dynamics anything outside of it. Man is thus barred by separant spatio-temporality from “knowing” his previous developmental phases of partaking in boundless infinity. Time and space are the angels guarding the passage back to pantheistic paradise. This separation of creation from boundless infinity is absolute. The way back to it as decreed by the separant vector is impossible. Man is trapped within space, time and causality and cannot even conceive boundless infinity. By the separant mandates of the Old Testament, man should not seek participant “knowledge” with God. An impermeable screen divides the boundless and infinite God from His chipped off particles within space and time. Moreover, unity seems to be at the very edge of our ability to conceive the limits of time and space, because it can be both an almost spaceless point and an expanding universe, which started, as many astronomers believe, with a single Big Bang. Unity can also be an isolated event, or a sequence of unities, which creates measurable time. Unity thus serves as the conceivable edge to the world of space and time and provides the tangential link between the separant world of existence and the pre-differentiated world of boundless infinity. Kant posited the philosophical limits to our perception of space, time, and an uncaused cause. We provide the psycho-ontological bases for the limits of our perception. There might be analogous worlds, synchronic with ours, in which there is no time, space, causality, and teleology. However, we are unable to imagine them as we are imprisoned by the spatio-temporal structures of our existence. These have been programmed purposefully so that we are unable to “know” anything beyond the unity which is on the dividing tangent between the spatio-temporality of later orality and the pantheistic early orality and non-being in utero. This premise provides a psycho-developmental base for some metaphysical critiques like Kant’s, for Leibniz’s contention that monads have no windows – an awareness on one level of existence cannot conceive

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another level of existence – as well as for our own meta-psychological paradigm explained in this work. This premise is also linked to our contention that our cognition of space and time is related to our deprivational interaction with our environment at later orality. It is this relation which actually helps to create our ego boundary and consequently, the sense of plurality, and our apartness from our surroundings. The conception of spatio-temporality is the result of the interrelationship between ourselves and the pluralities of objects and life forms around us. We agree with Leibniz that space and time result from perceived relationships and are not structured within our mind, as Kant expounded. Consequently, our existence in the world is firmly linked to our conception of space and time, so that we cannot conceive of a pre-differentiated non-being while being immersed within the spatio-temporal side of the ontological barricade. This provides another reason why monads within space and time can have no windows to boundless infinity: man, in space and time, cannot “know,” cannot be ontologically exposed to God in the away-and-beyond, which is the metaphysical projection of man’s early non-differentiation and non-being. The separant Greeks believed in the reality of the objects around them and in logic and reason, which governed the relationship between themselves and their objective surroundings. However, some twenty centuries later Kant showed that reason cannot prove the existence of the object. Sisyphean man thus finds himself in an impasse from which he has not yet emerged. He is for ever punished to push his rock-burden, about the reality of which he cannot even be sure. The extreme participant mystic, the Taoist and the Buddhist, deny the reality of the object and Kant claimed that space and time are just structures in our mind. But, even for the separant Sisyphean, surrounding space lost its solidity, stability and consistency. Quantum mechanics demonstrates that some particles behave as if the laws of physics do not exist and some physicists argue, effectively, that matter exists only as a relationship between itself and an observing ego. If, indeed, ego’s sense of space and time is determined by his relationship with his surroundings, then Kant’s paradox and the contemporary physicist’s skepticism as to the “reality” of objects make Sisyphean man anchor on a spatio-temporality, the existence of which he cannot be sure. Moreover, he is dependent on his objective surroundings and life forms to provide the relational context within which his objective reality is formed. The separant ego is hence ontologically bound to, or even subjugated by, his objective surroundings as a source for his sense of reality. We demonstrated at length in The Violence of Silence70 how precarious our link with reality is, through our senses. Our somatic and

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endocrine balance influences our perception. Our psychic defense mechanisms, especially projection, displacement, and selective perception, distort our sensory intake. So do our motivations and moods. Finally, anthropologists have demonstrated that our perception of space, time, and causality is bound by culture. For some Amazonian tribes, time is not diachronic but synchronic; for some Aboriginal Australians, space is just one facet of their holistic totemic conception of the universe. Earlier we pointed out that man’s relationship with his surroundings is ruled by dialectics. Thus when an individual wants to mold or change his objective environment according to the quests of his serapant core vector, the result is a synthesis of the previous state and his efforts to effect the desired change. This synthesis is inevitably different from ego’s expected vision of separant change and is not even predictable from ego’s expectations. Being a tenacious Sisyphean, ego will try again and again to fulfill his separant dreams of controlling his surroundings with similar dialectical results. These results are liable to be registered as failures by the achievement-spurred separant. The separant anchors on his surroundings – objective, human, and institutional. He is what Vitkin calls a “field dependent.” He is “a good team member” and “a nice sociable guy.” When, for some reason, his group support is rescinded because of retirement, dismissal or exile, his reaction is liable to range from a feeling of general meaninglessness, through deep depression to the explosive shrieks of betrayal of an Ivan Ilich. The separant is also dominated by things, by the details of objects. The city cowboy is mesmerized by his car and the housewife is conned by communication channels to buy junk she will never use, thinking that the comfort and well-being of her family depend on it. The separant believes that he can find a solution to every problem. Sisyphean man believes he has only to search deeply and widely for answers. He may discover that solving routine and trivial problems is easy, but cardinal issues, such as safeguarding deep emotional links with other humans, or withstanding the blow of a sudden departure, render him helpless. The separant object manipulator projects onto his surroundings his quest for order, regularity, control, and dominion. Yet when he tries to apply causality and reason to his surroundings, he has no way to prove the existence of the objects around him. He is thus humiliated by his need to accept their existence as an article of faith. Moreover, Bohr and Heisenberg, leading quantum physicists, developed a philosophy of complementarity. In their complementarity, the measurer interacts with the measured object, and influences the results of the measurement. Thus there

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cannot be an “objective” measurements of man’s surroundings. Contrary to his separant convictions, Sisyphean man must concede that he cannot know his objective surroundings in the epistemological sense. Consequently, he cannot control and manipulate his objective surroundings with the stability and the constancy as motivated by his separant core vector. On a more pragmatic level, the author has witnessed some abysmal failures at perceiving the meanings of the cues transmitted by their surroundings to people who persist in imposing, separantly, their views of the world on their surroundings. The first example is that of a woman arguing with a man about her right to stand in front of him in a bus queue. The insensitive woman did not see that the man was blind; ultimately, it was she who was blind. Another example is that of an acquaintance of the author, a military General who suffered a severe heart attack, which incapacitated him. He refused to accept his incapacity and planned his trips to the toilet like a military operation, but very often he failed because he refused to recognize his limitations. The participant, on the other hand, shrinks from the object. He refuses to manipulate his surroundings and looks for ways to complete inaction (Nirvana), for liberation from the fetters of samsara, the petrifying routines of spatio-temporality, and for the non-being of Tao. For the participant Gnostics, the rulers of the world of creation are evil. For Faust, the contemporary myth of object-manipulation is spurred by the devil. Moreover, we are conditioned by our separant upbringing not to be able to grasp participant timelessness, nor conceive boundlessness or envisage non-being. The participant mystic might long for a union with Divinity but neither he nor we have any way of knowing if he has achieved it. Consequently, both the separant Sisyphean and the participant Tantalic seem to be failures vis-à-vis the desired goals of their corresponding personality core vectors. One of Heidegger’s innovations demonstrates that the sequences of time are ontologically unreal and inauthentic. The future is “not yet” whereas the past is “already not,”it is too elusive to have a “now” in it.71 In our context this represents the illusive quality of separant time. Sisyphus adheres to time charts and timetables as a sure hold on reality. “Time is money” and punctuality and temporal reliability are the anchors of industry and commerce. Yet on deeper phenomenological scrutiny, the separant temporal sequences seem to crumble. The ability to hold on to time as a foundation of ontology is as feasible as seeking stability and security while balancing ourselves precariously on the Sisyphean rolling stone. Bound by the sequences of time, Sisyphean man is a prisoner of time. The busy bureaucrat has a full calendar of meetings and appointments.

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This lends a temporal rhythm to his daily routines irrespective of their contents. He needs these temporal sequences to give meaning to his life. Thus, the separant becomes a slave of the temporal sequences themselves, irrespective of what may occur between the sequences. An additional aspect of our temporal fetters relates to the historicistic prison in which such thinkers as Hegel and Marx incarcerate separant man. According to the historicisitic stance the future is mortgaged to the past and the not-yet is irrevocably bound to the has-been. For the Sisyphean within the discrete sequence of time, it is either too early or too late. Camus’ judge-penitent realizes this in his Sisyphean pre-Fall phase: it was always too late for him to do the things he wanted to do, or felt that he had to do. If, for the separant arriviste, “time is money,” then for the participant Sufi, the need to hurry to keep up with temporal sequences comes from the devil. The Tantalic participant aims to free himself from the bonds of time and exist in an eternal present. A mystic may feel that he has achieved the “continuous now,” only to be dragged back to the realities of temporal sequences. On the other hand, Sisyphean man, who is actually contained and bound by the fetters of time, may realize that a phenomenological reduction of time makes it disintegrate into nothingness. The paradox of temporal sequences, which confine Sisyphean man, and the “eternal now,” which recedes when Tantalic man approaches it, characterize Man’s impasse in temporality. Relationships within plurality presuppose sequence and order, and therefore time. Temporal awareness is of the essence in the separant social character. The future-oriented Protestant Ethic regards the “fruitful,” “positive” use of one’s time as one of the dimensions of salvation, whereas the materialist dialecticians see temporal determinism or, in their jargon, “historical necessity,” as salvation incarnate. For the participant, time is the dimension of finitude that sustains the forms of matter and determines the sequential order of the spikes on the samsara wheel. The participant seeks constancy in unity, which is infinite and therefore timeless. The separant social character’s fixation on the object relates time to space in a dynamic, yet inseparable, gestalt. Consequently, our separant is intrinsically different from Spengler’s Faustian cultural archetype, which gives priority to, “time, direction, and destiny over space and causality.”72 For our separant social character, time and space, and hence direction and causality, belong to the same objective configuration. Consequently, the participant social character’s disengagement from the bonds of time entails freedom from the confines of space, because the two together make up concrete reality, like two atoms comprising a molecule of matter. When one atom is destroyed or separated, the molecule disintegrates. This

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simplistic example is illustrated in a more sophisticated manner by the Hinayana Buddhist state of jhana, which is both a unified, one-pointed awareness (i.e., without substance), and focused in one moment (ekaksana) of the present without a past or a future, and it is therefore timeless.73 Similarly, the participant Sufi achieves his aim when he frees himself from the slavery imposed on him by the time cycle of objective reality, and creates his own subjective time, which is the eternal present of “no time.”74 The separant social character is “future-oriented” because he must have a “life plan” to prove his worth before God, because “we fast today in order to feast tomorrow,” and because a succession of five-year plans zigzag us dialectically towards Utopia. “Remember,” said Benjamin Franklin, “time is money,” and money is a sign of grace, power, and wisdom. Consequently, the separant holds punctuality and adherence to timetables in high esteem, and is ruled by schedules, dates, and deadlines. He has to fill the unforgiving minute, to use Kipling’s verse, with sixty seconds of distance run. He abhors the waste of time, feels guilty if he sleeps late, even on holidays, and is gripped by anxiety if his watch has stopped or does not work properly. 75 The shape of the day as determined by orderly routine gives the separant a sense of security. It reassures him that by controlling his time he can control the space around him, and thus determine his destiny. The participant, on the other hand, has a constant sense of temporal failure. As an outsider, a non-participant observer of daily routines, he is in a better position to see the pointlessness of clinging to the spikes of the samsara wheel. The separant-Sisyphean does not have the right perspective for it, because he is too involved in his failing attempts to overpower the object. The participant longs for infinity. Therefore, history is far from being the omnipotent propellant, the separant prime mover that runs the world. For him, history and time are just whorls and ripples of the Maya curtain, the veil of illusions, which the Upanishadic moksha, the “liberation,” disperses. The Mayan illusion is that both time and form (rupa) are inseparably bound together. Consequently, the participant’s vision of the eternal now involves the dispersion of the obscuring fog of time, sequence, and form, and the revelation of the constancy of unity behind it. The developmental origin of time and space starts at early orality, with the movement in the digestive tract from the mouth to the stomach. This movement is from the outside (the mouth) to the inside (the digestive tract). The release of body fluids and impurities moves from the inside to the outside. This creates the sense of movement, the sequences of which

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are the basis for the development of the sense of time. These opposing movements may be responsible for the development of our sense of space. The ingestion and expulsion of food could lead to the development of the temporal part of the spatio-temporal continuum. The sense of well-being when sated makes for a pleasurable passage of time, whereas the relief of pressure at the time of waste expulsion generates the development of the spatial differentiation of the me and the not me. These developmental processes are later completed by the discomforts of entropy and aging. The somatic processes of the acquisition of the sense of space and time are coincidental with the mental synchronic sense of timelessness of the ani, the pure self, of early orality. The atzmi, the interactive self transcends the ani at later orality. The atzmi not only feels the vicissitudes of space and time and the deprivational interaction with changing temperatures and hard surfaces; but with the coagulation of the “ego boundary” around his separate self, the individual also feels lonely. There is ample evidence that the perception of space and time is related to individual differences.76 Of note is our finding that the separant personality type is more “field dependent.” Hence, he is more dependent on his performance on the special cues stemming from the overall objective Gestalt and the background set of the situation. On the other hand, the participant personality type who is “field independent,” relies on his own cognitive cues and not on the outward spatial Gestalt of the objects.77 Some structural personality defects, like compulsion neuroses cause the patient to cling obsessively to objects. In sexual fetishism the patient is erotically attracted to the opposite sex’s clothing. Some psychoses are characterized by a disorientation of time. The Korsakov Syndrome, for example, displays a total confusion of time sequences.78 It is interesting to note that Freud regarded the unconscious as timeless since is bore no relationships to time at all.79 Since experiments of sensory deprivation destroy the perception of time, the cognizance of temporality is subjective. This is evident with instances like someone drowning, where the rescue time seems to last ages. Likewise, a sleepless “white night” is perceived as lasting for ever.80 Hypnosis may twist time81 as do Mescaline, cannabinoids and LSD.82 Generally speaking, all hallucinogens make time seem longer. On the other hand, barbiturates make time seem shorter. Tranquilizers decrease the metabolic rate which results in a reduced perception of space. Per contra, Amphetamines increase the metabolic rate and so also the perception of space. We suggest that the transition from the synchronic wave function and superposition to the “collapse” of an eigenstate of an object, may not be instantaneous like the Copenhagen school of Quantum Mechanics has

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claimed. It is more gradual, as Bohr hypothesized: the synchronic “implicate order” may first present itself ideographically in the human brain and then, in a manner unknown to us, transforms itself into a diachronically perceptible “explicate order” of tangible space and time. Our ani (inner self), Husserl’s “pure self” and Bergson’s prime consciousness are reached at by intuition83 in the reflection of the Nous, the synchronic anima mundi, the world soul reflected kaleidoscopically in every human being and life form. The Nous as mytho-empiricized by the second verse of Genesis hovered over the chaotic waters84 and was not immersed in the universal chaos. Rather, it existed as a complement to it, not losing its independence. Similarly, when God’s spirit, or the Nous, was infused in all life forms, it did not lose its identity but complemented its hosting life forms. Also, the synchronic Nous, having freedom of will, initiated all processes of creativity. An inner revelation triggered the structuring of mythogenes, the blueprints for creativity ingrained in all art and artifacts. The ani has no past and no memory. Once memory takes hold, the ani is transformed into the diachronic, interactive atzmi. Yet, we have seen that memory, ingrained in the experiential component of the mythogene, is colored by the present when the Mythogenic Structure was formed. This again is the complementarity between the synchronic ani and the diachronic atzmi as mytho-empiricized by the Burning Bush. The deterministic diachronicity is admirably reduced, described, and measured by mathematicians. This is not so for the indeterministic synchronicity, the stochastic potentialities of which are inchoately described by Schrödinger’s wave function and Bohm’s “implicate order.” Therefore the formation of the Mythogenic Structure, which is composed of a largely diachronic component of experience and a mainly synchronic component of longing, and its generation of creativity, cannot be completely described by mathematics. Rather, it should be dealt with by the mytho-empirical method as described in this work. Time and space are clearly relational. Synchronicity, which is a stochastic potential, has no time or space. Therefore, existence is a relationship between the synchronic spirit and the diachronic body. Mytho-empirically, we have the second chapter of Genesis recounting that “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”85 Thus Man is a complementarity of life and the synchronicity of the (world) spirit. The body is beset by lust, greed, and covetousness as mytho-empiricized by the Original Sin. The spirit is the harbinger of care, love, and grace, as sublimated from the suffering of Christ on the Cross. Hence pain,

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suffering, and agony may lend meaning to our existence and provide depth to our creative endeavors. Immanuel Kant’s belief that the perception of space and time is an intra-personal filter of subjective cognition has been vindicated by many observations. This could be a corollary of Roland Fischer’s eloquent observation that all our perceptions are subjective. He says: “Apparently, whether we look at chromosomes, cathedrals or even into the mirror, we always look at our brain.”86 Indeed, quite a few research findings indicate that the cognition of spatio-temporality varies with internal conditions as discerned by our introceptors and by external conditions as observed by our extroceptors. The perception of space and time can be conditioned quite effectively. The changes in the passages of time are felt in variations of body rhythms: the alternation of day and night, shifts in temperature, weather conditions, and for women, the processes of ovulation and menstruation.87 Perception of space and time varies also with metabolic rates.88 The cognition of time varies with age: older people feel that time passes more quickly, whereas a child often feels that time drags.89 The subjective perception of time varies with emotions accompanying the changing events. Interesting events seem to last a short time, and in retrospect, a longer time. Whereas boring and monotonous events seem to last a long time, and in retrospect, are perceived as having passed quickly.90 For a prisoner, or someone on a tiring voyage, the last period seems to be the longest.91 Grief also makes time last longer.92 Conditions of mental stress cause the passage of time to contract whereas the passage of time under relaxed conditions seems to expand.93 The perception of time and space seems to vary from person to person.94 The so-called Kappa effect attests to the subjective perception of time. The Kappa effect states that: “The effect of tone on duration is that the listener allots a shorter duration to the higher tone than to the lower one, and the greater the difference between the two tones, the more striking is the effect.”95 The Kappa effect also holds for space: two parts of a journey take the same clock time yet that part of the journey seems to last longer in which the distance traveled and the speed of travel were greater.96 Finally, an object traveling faster is perceived to move in a shorter time whereas a body traveling slower is perceived to have traveled longer although objectively both objects have traveled the same time97.

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Notes 1

Penrose, R., The Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Penguin, 1991), 15. Weinberg, S., The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1977). 3 Scholem, G. G., Kabbala (Jerusalem: Ketter, 1988). 4 Ibid. 5 Tishby, I., The Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot in Lurianic Kabbala (Jerusalem: Schoken, 1942). 6 Idel, M., Kabbala: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 7 Husserl, E., Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1962). 8 Shoham, S. G., The Myth of Tantalus (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005). 9 Shoham, S. G., Rebellion, Creativity and Revelation (Middlesex: Science Reviews Ltd., 1984), chap. 10. 10 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, chapter 2. 11 Spengler, O., The Decline of the West, vol. 1 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1954), 107. 12 Kroeber, A. L., The Nature of Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 23-30. 13 Ibid. 14 White, L., The Abnormal Personality (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1964), 52. 15 Kroeber, A. L., Anthropology: Culture Patterns and Processes (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963), 101. 16 Spengler, Decline of the West, 101. 17 Lévi-Strauss, C., The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966). 18 Benedict, R., Patterns of Culture (New York: Mentor Books, 1934), 54. 19 Ibid., 220. 20 Kroeber, Anthropology, 125-130. 21 Lévi-Strauss, Savage Mind, 9. 22 Hsu, F. L. K., The Study of Literate Civilizations (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969), 86. 23 Riesman, D. N., Glazer and R. Denney, The Lonely Crowd (New York: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1953). 24 Spengler, Decline of the West, 107. 25 Fromm, Escape from Freedom. 26 Cited in Riesman et al., The Lonely Crowd, 19. 27 Lévy-Bruhl, L., How Natives Think (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966), 3-5. 28 Jung’s definition of the “collective subconscious” in Jung, C. G., Psychological Types (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1944), 616. 29 Shestov, L., Athens and Jerusalem (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968), 61. 30 Spengler, Decline of the West. 31 Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2

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McClelland, D. C., The Achieving Society (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961). Murray, G., Five Stages of Greek Religion (New York: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1955), 4-5. 34 Russell, B., History of Western Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1947), 383. 35 McClelland, Achieving Society, 51. 36 Humphreys, C., Buddhism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1952), 81. 37 Ibid., 88-89. 38 Eliade, M., Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 9. 39 Ibid., 8. 40 Ibid., 87. 41 Ibid., 49. 42 McClelland, Achieving Society, 369. 43 Watts, W., The Way of Zen (New York: Mentor Books, 1960), 108. 44 Graves, R., The Greek Myths vol. I (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1955), 38-40. 45 Popper, K., Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 179. 46  Shoham, S. G., The Violence of Silence: the Impossibility of Dialogue (Middlesex: Transaction Books; Northwood: Science Reviews Ltd., 1983). 47 Cited in Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1953), 194. 48  Cited in Huxley, A., The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper Colophon 1970), 189. 49 Eliade, M., Myth and Reality (London: Harper and Row, 1963), 79. 50 Ibid., 80-81. 51 Ibid., 80. 52 Maspero, H., “Les procédés de nourir le principe vital dans la religion Toaiste ancienne”, Journal Asiatique (April-June 1937) : 198; Stein, Rolf, “Jardins en miniature d’Extrême Orient”, Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 42 (1942): 97. 53 Eliade, Myth and Reality, 87. 54 Ibid., 86. 55 Free translation from Stanca, R., Buffalo Bill. 56  Kipling, R., “If” In The Collected Poems of Rudyard Kipling (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2001). 57 Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 1962), 420-22. 58  Plato, The Dialogues of Plato trans. B. Jowett, vol. 2, 3rd ed. rev. and corr. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892), 19. 59 Heidegger, M., Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwells, 1967), chap. 5. 60  Sartre, J-P., No Exit and Three Other Plays, trans. S. Gilbert and L. Abel (London: Vintage Books, 1945). 61 Buber, M., I and Thou, trans. Martin G. Smith (New York: Collier, 2000), 33. 62  Lewis, I. M., Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1989). 33

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63  Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 19983), 273. 64 Letter from Leibniz to Arnauld cited in Russell, Western Philosophy, 616. 65  Heidegger, M., Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 43. 66 Marcel, G., Journal métaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, 1927), 4. 67 Tillich, P., The Boundaries of Our Being (London: Fontana, 1973), 100 et seq. 68  Castaneda, C., The Teachings of Don Juan (Berkley: University of California Press, 1968), 71. 69  Cited in Nakhnikian, W. P. and Nakhnikian, G., eds, Readings in Twentieth Century Philosophy (New York: Free Press, 1963), 59 et seq. 70 Shoham, Violence of Silence. 71 Heidegger, Being and Time. 72 Lipset, S. M., and Zetterberg, H. L., “A Theory of Social Mobility,” in Class, Status and Power (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953), 569. 73 Humphreys, Buddhism, 16. 74 Watts, Way of Zen, 59. 75 See Koestler, A., The Lotus and the Robot (London: New English Library, 1964), 183. 76 Cohen, J., “Subjective Time,” in The Voices of Time, ed. J. T. Fraser (New York: George Braziller, 1966), 259. 77 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus, 56. 78 Merloo, J. A. M., “The Time Sense in Psychiatry,” in The Voices of Time, 244. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., 250. 81 Cohen, “Subjective Time,” 269. 82 Ibid. 83 Bergson, H., “The Creative Mind,” in Readings in Twentieth Century Philosophy, eds. W. P. and G. Nakhnikian. New York: Free Press, 1963, 59. 84 Genesis 1: 2. 85 Genesis 2: 7. 86 Fischer, R., “ Biological Time,” in The Voices of Time, 368. 87 Merloo, “Time Sense,” 242. 88 Fischer, “Biological Time,” 360. 89 Ibid. 90 Merloo, “Time Sense,” 241. 91 Ibid., 243. 92 Ibid., 243. 93 Fischer, “Biological Time,” 371. 94 Cohen, “Subjective Time,” 268. 95 Ibid., 266. 96 Ibid., 267. 97 Piaget, J., “Time Perception in Children,” in The Voices of Time, 210.

CHAPTER TWO SACRED AND PROFANE SPACE AND TIME

We envisage a duality of temporal existence. Thus historical diachronicity is the transition from future to past within which the present has no real existence. Heidegger’s Being and Time enumerates the existentiolia, which for Heidegger constitutes the indices of being amongst which the present does not figure. It is only an Augenblick, an eye-blink. Per contra, synchronicity, which is experienced through an ecstasy from history, is the “eternal now,” to use Paul Tillich’s phrase.1 Mytho-empirically, diachronicity consumes its offspring. The Greek God Cronus who evolved into Chronos, Father Time,2 swallowed his children as it was prophesized that they would dethrone him. This means that diachronic time is consumed by its own passage. Only Zeus was saved by his mother, Rhea; she served her husband Chronos a stone wrapped in Zeus’ clothes. Thus Zeus, the chief deity dwelling in eternity, existed in immortal synchronicity. So do souls, spirits and Husserl’s attributes, the “pure self,”3 which resembles our ani in the seat of consciousness. It is as young as the day it was born in the psyche of the self.4 Only the body is subjected to diachronic entropy and grows old. This temporal duality is complemented by space to form the trinity of existence. We have borrowed the dogmas of the Nicaean Council to metaphorize our claim that this experiential trinity is a developmental epiphany of an underlying unity. We shall try to substantiate our contention in this chapter: that diachronic time and space build the “aquarium” for our historical survival, whereas synchronicity is the seat of our consciousness as well as the potential route of our existence. The boundaries of the spatio-temporal aquarium, or to be more tangible, its container, are made of the historically impassable constant of the speed of light. This container has the attributes of viability, self-regulation, and evolution as envisaged by Piaget5 and Claude Lévi-Strauss.6 Hence, according to the Special Theory of Relativity, space and diachronic time approaching the speed of light would disappear to any observer “sitting” on the container, which represents the content of the speed of light. Mytho-empirically, man’s thrownness out of the Edenic, pantheistic, synchronicity of early orality into the mortally

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finite and spatially encapsulated later orality is ordained by the continuous cycle of Original Sin. Indeed, the flaming sword, which turned in all directions, that was placed to guard the way back to paradise7 may be the mytho-empirical projection of the ontological barrier of the speed of light guarding man and other forms in space and time. This makes space and diachronic time subjective fetters of cognition8 gene-sated by human development at the oral stage. According to some contemporary theories of cosmology, the Black Holes are realms of such intense gravity that even rays of light cannot escape from them. These Black Holes are surrounded by “event horizons,” spatio-temporal boundaries encompassing the Black Holes. The “singularities,” which are synchronic, non-spatial points within the Black Holes are the potential nothingness as wholeness from which space and time are created by the Big Bang. The universe then shrinks back into the Black Hole and to the spacelessness and timelessness of the singularity by the Big Crunch. Spatio-temporality is also relational. In modern quantum mechanics spatio-temporality is “collapsed” from Schrödinger’s wave function (Ȍ), which is the probability of finding a particle or a wave by an observation or a measurement. Hence, the crystallization of spatio-temporality requires an interaction between an observer and an observed. This is denoted as the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. This rather obscure statement may be clarified by the following extensive explanation, originally expounded in The Promethean Bridge.9 Three hundred years of enlightenment, and the tremendous impact of Galileo and Newton, have made physics the science par excellence, in which rigorous measurements are both possible and necessary. Einstein shook the self-confidence of physicists and quantum mechanics further and cracked it badly. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, especially as expounded by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and John A. Wheeler, co-opts the observer as a necessary partner to the observation of a quantum. Hence, the psyche, or the consciousness of the human observer, becomes a legitimate parameter of quantum mechanics. Indeed, this is the rationale of our present chapter, in which we set out to relate the human personality to physics. John A. Wheeler also formulated the “participatory anthropic principle,” according to which observers are necessary to bring the universe into being.10 The current theoretical interpretations of quantum mechanics11 make most science fiction appear rather unimaginative. Most physicists continue to chase particles and pragmatic applications of quantum mechanics because these have proved so successful and lucrative. Thus, physicists are

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not usually interested in the psychological and philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, and the nature of physical and quantum reality. However, by conceiving of physical reality as a complementarity between the observed system and the human observer, the human psyche, with both its participant and separant components, is introduced into the physical system. These two components are complementary, both in the observer’s personality and in the dynamics of the observed physical systems. We are interested in the philosophical implications of quantum reality and in the dynamics of the interrelationships between the human personality and matter-energy. We shall try to avail ourselves of the knowledge obtained by the various disciplines, without worrying unduly about defining our endeavor. As existentialists we believe, with Kierkegaard, that reluctance to define is a sign of tact.

One Slit, Two Slits The double-slit experiment is probably the single most eloquent didactic tool available for demonstrating the problematic nature of measurement in quantum mechanics. A source of light-emitting photons is placed in front of a board, which has two slits in it, and a photographic plate is positioned behind it to record the photons emitted. When both slits are open and the photons flow freely through both holes, an interference pattern is formed on the screen. This is characteristic of waves, since the crests of concordant waves are cumulative, while the crests and troughs of discordant waves cancel each other out. When one slit is closed, the photons flowing through the remaining slit form a bright uniform pattern on the screen, characteristic of particle behavior. When the other slit is reopened, the interference pattern characterizing waves reappears on the screen. However, if a monitoring device is attached to each slit to count the photons that pass through it, the interference pattern disappears and the photons will instead form a uniform bright patch, characteristic of particles. Three queries, out of the myriad that come to mind, are crucial in this context. How and why do the metamorphoses from waves to particles and back again to waves, take place? How do the photons “know” that the other slit is open and that they have to behave like waves instead of particles? One of the most widely accepted answers to these queries, associated mainly with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, is known as the Copenhagen interpretation. According to Heisenberg:

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Chapter Two The statement that any light quantum must have gone either through the first or through the second hole is problematic and leads to contradictions. This example shows clearly that the concept of the probability function does not allow a description of what happens between two observations. Any attempt to find such a description would lead to contradictions; this must mean that the term “happens” is restricted to the observation.12

Hence, the Copenhagen interpretation negates the ability to understand the quantum reality underlying our observation, because this leads us inevitably into absurd contradictions. It also means that we cannot know what really happened in the quantum world, in the time between our observation of a wave and our subsequent observation of a particle. Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” relation is another cornerstone of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This principle states that our knowledge of quantum reality must be limited because, among other factors, the act of measurement itself infuses energy into the measured micro-quantum system, perturbs it, and thus vitiates the accuracy of the measurement. However, the Copenhagen interpretation seems to make an ontological claim according to which there are canonically conjugate variables, which do not possess well-defined values in the reality of the quantum world. Basically, however, the uncertainty principle is related to the intrinsic differences between the classical and quantum worlds, and the inadequacy of classical measuring instruments for measuring quantum events. Yet, in a sense, Bohr tries to argue that we have no choice but to express ourselves by and through the system of classical physics because this is the system through which we perceive and the conceptual structure by which we are able to communicate. Bohr’s first argument in favor of this contention proceeds from the fact that we need our classical concepts, not only if we want to give a summary of observed results, but also because without them the results to be summarized could not even be stated. As Kant before him, Bohr observes that our experimental statements are always formulated with the help of certain theoretical terms, and that the elimination of these terms would lead, not to the “foundations of knowledge” as the positivists would have it, but to complete chaos. “Any experience,” he asserts, “makes its appearance within the frame of our customary points of view and forms of perception.”13 “And at the present moment,” adds Feyerabend, “the forms of perception are those of classical physics.”14 Hence, according to Bohr, “Only with the help of classical ideas is it possible to ascribe an unambiguous meaning to the results of observation.”15 He concludes, “However far the new phenomena transcend

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the scope of classical physical explanation, the account of all evidence must be expressed in classical terms.”16 Thus, some of Bohr’s efforts are directed at trying to “raise” the phenomena of the quantum world onto a conceptual level, which would be intelligible to observers in the classical world. Measurement of the energy relations of quanta precludes the exact measurement of their space-time processes, and vice versa; measurement of the chemical properties of a molecule precludes the ability to determine the motion of individual electron in the molecule; and the observation of the wave-like properties precludes the measurement of particles-like properties.17 There would seem to be a barrier between the classical macro- and quantum microworlds, a barrier that permits only scant, inchoate, and largely inconsistent information to pass from one side to the other. This led Heisenberg to declare, in near desperation, “I remember discussions with Bohr which went on for many hours, till very late at night, and ended almost in despair; when at the end of the discussion I went for a walk alone in the neighboring park, I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?”18 The uncertainty principle led to a pragmatic faute de mieux rule of the Copenhagen interpretation: If one cannot obtain simultaneous information about canonically conjugate variables, the measurement of one should complement the information obtained from the separate measurement of the other. The complementarity principle of the Copenhagen interpretation thus states, for example, that the momentum of quanta complements their position, and that the observation of wave-like properties is complementary to the measurement of particle-like properties. As the Copenhagen interpretation does not undertake to describe the quantum reality “behind” or “between” the observations, it expresses the probabilities of observing a certain quantum event by a function. It thus relies on the probability wave function, which shows the probabilities of detecting a particle in a given physical system.19 The crucial point, however, is that the transition from the probability function to the “actual” quantum event is executed by the observation.20 Hence the potential becomes actual by the act of observation. There can be no quantum event without an observer. This symbiosis between observer and observed introduces an indeterministic element into quantum mechanics. The observer has a role in determining what to observe and hence influences the outcome of the observation. Simply, the observer’s decision to count particles has a role in the actual observation of particles rather than waves, as in the two slits

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experiment already described. Once again, this supports W.I. Thomas’ theorem that if one defines a situation as real, it becomes real in its consequences. Such “definition of the situation” is an indeterministic structure, which, as we shall claim and elaborate, links human consciousness with the physical system. This is in addition to the infusion of energy into observed quanta by the act of observation, which inevitably influences their momentum, position, or both. The gist of the Copenhagen interpretation is summarized in the words of Niels Bohr: “An independent reality in the ordinary sense can be ascribed neither to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation.”21 Apparently, Bohr was influenced by another Dane, Søren Kierkegaard, whose dialogue philosophy postulates that only a relationship can be real, not its solitary components. Hence, quantum reality is not a function of the observer or the observed, but rather inherent in their dyadic interaction. The observer and the physical system are inextricably linked together; their interaction is the only reality.22 It was an idea Einstein could not tolerate. He could not accept the nonreality of the micro-physical world, or the claim that individual events are observer-dependent and non-predictable. Above all, he could not accept that an observer can create a physical reality, ex nihilo. Therefore he devised, with associates, the EPR (Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen) thought experiment, in which two particles interact, then fly off in different directions.23 The uncertainty principle does not allow us to measure both the momentum (p) and the position (q) of each particle; but we can measure the sum of the momenta of the two particles (p¹+p²) and the distance between the positions (q¹-q²) of the two particles. Hence, after measuring the momentum of one particle (p¹), we can find the momentum of the other particle (p²) by subtraction. Likewise, we can find the position of one particle (q¹) by measuring it and the position of the other (q²) by summation, even though the two particles may be thousands of miles apart. Thus, we not only evade the uncertainty principle, but also break the sacrosanct rule of local causality in physics, which states that events must be related in a space-time (local) casual congruity. If quantum mechanics postulates, as per the Copenhagen interpretation, a non-local influence of one particle on another, even when the two are far apart, the quantum mechanics theory must be incomplete. Not so, retorted Bohr. The position of one particle (q¹) is actually created by its measurement and has no bearing on the position of the second (q²), which might as well not exist until itself measured; but then the uncertainty principle would not allow any interferences about the position of particle one (q¹). Quantum reality may be imputed only to measured objects.

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A further development in the demonstration of a non-local effect of one particle on another may be found in the so-called “violation of Bell’s inequality.” Bell’s experiment caused a positronium atom to decay into two photons; hence, it originates from a quantum interaction. These two photons fly in opposite directions with a perfectly correlated polarization, like two identical twins. The design of the experiment may be presented as in Figure 2.1. The positronium source shoots perfectly correlated pairs of photons at two polarisers, A and B. The photons are made to pass through the polarisers where they are detectable. A hit is registered as 1, a miss 0. Ԧ is the relative angle between the polarisers A and B.24 Bell’s inequality, E(2Ԧ ” 2E(Ԧ)), states that the errors in detection of photons by polarizer A, when twisted by twice the angle Ԧ, should be less than twice the recorded errors if the twist was by angle Ԧ only. This is because a double error cancels itself out and is not recorded as an error by both polarisers. This holds of course, if the twisting of the polarization of the photons at A does not influence the behavior of their twins at B. In actual figures, if Ԧ = 25ƕ yields a 10 percent error, 2Ԧ, i.e., 50ƕ should yield less than 20 percent. But, lo and behold, an angle of 2Ԧ, i.e., a polarizing twist of 50ƕ yielded 30 percent – fifty percent more than expected. This significant result was verified by the Aspect team in 1982, which showed that one photon influenced the behavior of its twin even if its polarization was changed while flying in mid-air. These results suggest that one photon passes information over to its twin faster than the speed of light, or that one photon affects the other in a non-local manner. Both of these conclusions are repugnant to physicists, especially those who hold Einstein’s convictions about the reality of the physical world and the need for a continuous spatio-temporal chain between cause and effect. .

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Fig. 2.1: Violation of Bell’s inequality. Some critics contend that the emission of the twin photons in the Belltype experiments is random and that one cannot deduce any casual conclusion from random patterns. Yet even these critics admit that the change in the random patterns of the twin photons, as recorded by the two polarisers, is significantly correlated. For us, however, the crucial aspect of the EPR, Bell, and Aspect experiments lies in the initial interaction of the twin photons, prior to flying off in opposite directions. This will form one of the baselines of our interpretation of quantum mechanics. It should be noted that this initial intercourse is not so rare as one might think at first. Gribbin rightly contends: The Aspect experiment and its predecessors do indeed make for a very different world view from that of our everyday common sense. They tell us that particles that were once together in an interaction remain in some sense parts of a single system, which responds together to further interactions. Virtually everything we see and touch and feel is made of collections of particles that have been involved in interactions with other particles right back through time, to the Big Bang in which the universe as we know it came into being. The atoms in my body are made of particles that once jostled in close proximity in the cosmic fireball with particles that are now part of a distant star, and particles that form the body of some living creature on some distant, undiscovered planet. Indeed the particles that make up my body once jostled in close proximity and interacted with the particles that now make up my body. We are as much parts of a single system as the two photons flying out of the heart of the Aspect experiment.25

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However, before presenting our own interpretation, we wish to comment on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, mainly on its insistence upon the non-reality of the quantum phenomena prior to the actual act of measurement. John E. Wheeler, one of the more extreme exponents of the Copenhagen interpretation, goes so far as to deny any reality to the quanta in the double-slit experiment, even after they have passed through the two slits. In a “delayed choice,” the observer can then decide whether he wants to measure a particle or a wave. Wheeler’s thought experiment is conducted as follows: The two slits focus on a lens, which passes light onto another lens instead of the photographic plate in the standard experimental design. The recording lens can diverge photons coming from the two slits onto right and left detectors, corresponding to the right and left slits. A crosssection of Wheeler’s “delayed choice” experiment is shown in Figure 2.2.

Fig. 2.2: Wheeler’s delayed choice, double-slit experiment On the second lens, Venetian blinds can open to allow photons to pass, or close and thus serve as the photographic screen of the standard, doubleslit experiment. The observer can then decide, after the photons have already passed the double-slit, whether he wishes to measure particles and

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leave the Venetian blinds on the second lens open. In this case, the detectors record the particles. Alternatively, he may decide to close the blinds, and then he gets the interference pattern of waves on the photographic surface of the closed Venetian blinds.26 Before the measurement, argues Wheeler, there was no quantum event. Both the particle and the interference pattern were created by the act of measurement. However, the Copenhagen interpretation presents the probabilities of detecting a particle or a wave by a probability wave function, which does not relate to a real quantum state; yet this presumably non-real probability wave function leaves an interference pattern on the double-slit experiment’s photographic screen, if not interrupted by particle detectors. The wave seems to be real, if not interfered with by an instrument that measures particles. The Copenhagen interpretation, as formally presented by Von Neumann, contains an inconsistency. We pointed out earlier that its conceptualization of the interference pattern of the waves in the double-slit experiment as an “interference of probabilities,”27 is a contradiction in terms, because the interference pattern of the waves is not probabilistic, but rather registered on the photographic screen. However, the formalism of quantum mechanics, as presented by Von Neumann, initially describes a probability wave function ȥ(x), which is the probability that a particle may be detected at point x (the Schrödinger equation of motion). This probability equation is linear and deterministic, yet when a particle is observed, the probability wave function collapses and the existence of a real particle becomes a certainty (probability 1). Bohr interprets this collapse as the result of indeterministic, subjective choice by the observer. “Our knowledge of the system,” he says, “suddenly changes.”28 This, according to Von Neumann, is a reduction of a “pure state function” (which is not an eigenstate) into a real particle (an eigenstate of the observable). This measurement, as decided upon indeterministically when the observer collapses the wave probability function into a certainty, is discontinuous and non-linear. Moreover, Von Neumann argues that the boundary between the measured quantum system and the observer can be shifted arbitrarily along the measurement chain into the brain of the observer. What is observed definitely depends upon the choice of the measurement arrangement. The state of the system, before the completion of the measurement, is not well defined until it has been concretized by an irreversible act of the observer. Yet, cutting the measurement chain between the measuring apparatus and the quantum system, and cutting it between the observer and the measuring apparatus have, in principle, entirely incompatible observable consequences. This is because the Copenhagen interpretation does not

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provide definite criteria and satisfactory explanations for the transition from classic objects, like the observer and the measuring instrument, to quanta objects, like particles. Thus, the Copenhagen interpretation suffers from an inherent disconnectedness between what it describes as “macroreality,” on the one hand, and “quantum non-reality,” on the other. Roger Penrose, who has published a critique of the relationship between consciousness and quantum mechanics, clearly sees the disconnectedness between the linearly deterministic time evolution of Schrödinger’s wave function (ȥ) and the collapse of this wave function, by an indeterministic act of measurement. Says Penrose: Regarding ȥ as describing the “reality” of the world, we have none of this indetermination that is supposed to be a feature inherent in quantum theory- so long as ȥ is governed by the deterministic Schrödinger evolution. Let is call this evolution process U. However, whenever we “make a measurement,” magnifying quantum effects to the classical level, we change the rules. Now we do not use U, but instead adopt the completely different procedure, which I refer to as R, of forming the squared moduli of quantum amplitudes to obtain classical probabilities! It is the procedure R, and only R, that introduces uncertainties and probabilities into quantum theory. The deterministic process U seems to be the part of quantum theory of main concern to working physicists; yet philosophers are more intrigued by the non-deterministic state-vector reduction R (or, as it is sometimes graphically described: collapse of the wave function). Whether we regard R as simply a change in the “knowledge” available about a system, or we take it (as I do) to be something “real,” we are indeed provided with two completely different mathematical ways in which the state-vector of s physical system is described as changing with time. For U is totally deterministic, whereas R is a probabilistic law; U maintains quantum complex superstition, but R grossly violates it; U acts in a conscious way, but R is blatantly discontinuous. According to the standard procedures of quantum mechanics, there is no implication that there be any way to “deduce” R as a complicated instance of U. It is simply a different procedure from U, providing the other “half” of the interpretation of the quantum formalism. All the non-determinism of the theory comes from R and not from U. Both U and R are needed for all the marvelous agreements that quantum theory has with observational facts. Let us return to our wave function ȥ. Suppose it is in a momentum state. It will remain in that momentum state happily for the rest of time so long as the particle does not interact with anything (this is what Schrödinger’s equation tells us). Any time we choose to measure its momentum we still get the same definite answer. There are no probabilities here. The

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Amplitudes of Schrödinger’s wave function are “smeared” all over in a superposition of states (a dynamic that we shall explain later), denoted by Penrose as the U process, whereas the act of measurement reduces the (classic) probability to a certainty by collapsing the wave function (Penrose’s R). Penrose goes as far as suggesting that such disconnectedness of Schrödinger’s linear, time-evolving, deterministic wave function (Penrose’s U) from the indeterministic act of measurement, which lifts the quantum events to the classical level by the collapse of the wave function, cannot be solved by mere hermeneutic interpretation (presumably alluding to the Copenhagen interpretation), but requires a radical new theory. According to Penrose: I believe that the problems within quantum theory itself are of a fundamental character. Recall the incompatibility between the two basic procedures U and R of quantum mechanics (U obeys the completely deterministic Schrödinger’s equation – called unitary evolution – and R was the probabilistic state-vector reduction that one must apply whenever an observation is deemed to have been made). In my view, this incompatibility is something which cannot be adequately resolved merely by the adoption of a suitable “interpretation” of quantum mechanism (though the common view seems to be that somehow it must be able to be), but only by some radical new theory, according to which the two procedures U and R will be seen to be different (and excellent) approximations to a more comprehensive and exact single procedure. My view, therefore, is that even the marvelously precise theory of quantum mechanics will have to be changed, and that the powerful hints as to the nature of this change will have to come from Einstein’s general relativity. I shall go further and say, even, that it is actually the sought-for theory of quantum gravity which must contain, as one of its fundamental ingredients, this putative combined U/R procedure.30

We do not claim to present a whole new radical and comprehensive theory here, but our exposition of the link between consciousness and matter-energy is indeed new, and constitutes a step in the direction advocated by Penrose.

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Finally, the Copenhagen interpretation, as we have mentioned, claims that the observer and the observed actually create quanta by their interaction, but does not tell us how. As there is an uncertainty border between the macro and micro worlds, the Copenhagenists claim no proof that before the observation there was no quantum reality – there was nothing. Connecting Von Neumann’s mathematical formalism describing the collapse of the Schrödinger wave function into a defined physical eigenstate, we may point out the following problems; first, the Schrödinger wave function – onto which the probability of finding a particle is “smeared,” according to Bohr, and measured by the square of its amplitude – is linear and deterministic. The collapse of the wave function of the quantum system, as formulated by Von Neumann, is stochastic and non-linear. Hence, there is a dynamic disconnectedness between the movement of the wave function and its collapse into a physical eigenstate. A second point of criticism is that, according to Von Neumann, the collapse may be effected anywhere between the physical system and the brain of the observer; yet the dynamics are bound to be different if the collapsing measurement is effected by the measuring instrument. According to our reassessment of the Copenhagen interpretation, in which a complementarity relationship takes place between a valueendowing human psyche and a quantum system, the formation of a clearly defined phenomenon is as follows: the act of measurement plunges the measured quantum system, both the measurement instrument and the observer’s brain, into a “superposition of states.” This is the murky “quantum-soup” of non-defined, entangled probability waves and their squared amplitudes. The subsequent collapse of the wave function is carried out by a virtual particle, originating in the human brain and engulfed by a hermetic force field. This hermetic force is named after Hermes, the messenger of the Greek gods, as its function is to link the cognition of the observer, as contained in the measurement instrument (including the human being) and to measure a quantum system. The virtual particle has only a shadowy physical existence, since it can violate the uncertainty barrier. As the uncertainty relationship postulates, (¨E.¨T • h), where E is energy, T is time, and h is Plank’s constant. If E tends to 0, then T tends to ’. Hence, a virtual particle which borrowed a minute amount of energy may exist for a relatively long time. As we do not grasp quarks, bosons, and gluons, but only perceptible phenomena, the collapse of the wave function into a defined physical state is essentially a cognitive one. This is brought about by a hermetic force field cloning a virtual wave function. The cognitive collapse into a well-defined phenomenon does not

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affect the physical system and the measurement apparatus, which remain in superposition of states. The link between the cognitive system and the physical one is carried out by the hermetic force field through a maieutic Socratic resonance. The Socratic, maieutic, dialogic relationship was not foreign to Bohr, as it had already been expounded by Kierkegaard. This maieutic relationship entails a mediating, generative triggering by the cognitive virtual particle and the hermetic force field. Together they clone a virtual wave function, which fits like a cognitive halo around the wave function. The cloned virtual wave function then interacts with the function through a resonance. According to Riordan, “these nuclear resonances have proved to be excited, short-lived states that are momentary flirtations of a pion and a nucleon. In pion-nucleon scattering, a pion can be caught in the momentary embrace of a nucleon; they orbit each other briefly before separating once again. Think of two dancers coming together in a square dance, embracing warmly and swinging fondly, before parting and going their separate ways.”31 The resonance “minuet” is the maieutic interaction by means of which the virtual cognitive collapse is effected, and a minute quantity of energy is transmitted to dent it in its superimposed stage, so that whoever observes the physical state will perceive the same object. The resonance triggered by a maieutic interaction between the cognition of the observer and the quantum system must be in a well-defined, observable state, for all observers. David Bohm’s “hidden variables” interpretation of quantum mechanics utilizes the point-particle concept, which is very much like our virtual particle, and is more of a cognitive entity than a physical one. Bohm envisages a Hamiltonian function (a function that gives the total energy of particles in motion), which evolves deterministically from initially known conditions. A “pilot wave” then chooses one branch of the probability destiny wave function, and other branches become ineffectual. Unlike the Copenhagen interpretation, which postulates probabilistic relationships between the measuring instrument, the Hamiltonian wave function, and the physical relativity problems, Bohm’s interpretation realistically encounters Lorenz in variance and relativity problems. As we envisage a virtual collapse of the wave function, which is largely cognitive, we do not encounter any relativity problems. The Many Worlds interpretation of Everett and de Witt has a science fiction aura about it. All the probabilities of the wave function materialize, since each relationship between an observer and observed results not in a well-defined eigenstate, but in a world unto themselves. Hence, there is no

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need for the wave function to collapse because all squared amplitudes of its probability wave function are realized in a different space-time universe. Consequentially, each measurement creates a separate world for the measurer, the measurement instrument, and the quantum system. The acute problem is that if each observer disappears with the measurement instrument and the eigenstate of the observed into a world of their own, what happens if the same observer and the same instrument measure another quantum system? Will they occupy another world, completely cut off from the first? How, then, will persons keep a continuous, stable identity if each observation catapults them into a separate world? Also, the Schrödinger wave function contains no provisions for world splitting. Our interpretation would help the Many Worlds interpretation evade some pitfalls, since it contains a dualism of consciousness and energymatter. A hermetic force field, sent by a particle originating in our consciousness, clones the time-evolving Hamiltonian and leads the virtual particles to one wave packet, whereas the others become ineffective. Since this dynamic is cognitive and virtual and does not happen in a physical system, each observer generates a different hermetic force field corresponding to his own cognition. A variation on the theme of the Many Worlds interpretation is the Many Minds interpretation of Albert and Lower. It postulates that each probability in the wave function has a corresponding state of mind, and that each probability materializes. In addition to the lack of the observeridentity problem common to the Many Worlds and Many Minds interpretations, the Many Minds exposition is also vulnerable to the dangers of solipsism, since, according to it, one observer functions as if his mind is the sole mind in existence, unaware of others. If Albert and Lower would have adopted our stance and synchronized it with theirs, they would not have succumbed to the dangers of solipsism. We postulate one consciousness, reflected kaleidoscopically in every life form, with the hermetic force field generating a virtual maieutic trigger, leading through a cognitive halo to the wave function. The resulting classical phenomenon, which is indeed a unique relationship between a mind and a physical system, is a cognitive reflection of the mind in the physical system, which does not preclude a similar cognitive reflection of another mind. Hence, the dangers of solipsism are avoided, by means of our interpretation, which also assures the continuous identity of the observer. The interpretation of Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber postulates a spontaneous collapse of the wave function of the measurement instrument

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into a particle, which collapses, by a domino effect, the whole measurement instrument and, thence, the quantum system. This happens because the measurement instrument is a macroscopic, classic object, big enough to have one of its particles collapse randomly and start the whole chain creation, which collapses both the measurement and the quantum system into a well-defined eigenstate. The stochastic collapse is effected by the Gaussian curve (the normal curve) of the measuring instrument, which clones the wave function of the instrument, which in turn collapses both the instrument and the quantum system. The problems here start with the collapse, which possesses relativistic inconsistencies. Also, the trails of the Gaussian curve never reach zero, and hence the collapse cannot lead to a complete eigenstate of a quantum system. Finally, Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber do not explain the domino effect, by which the first collapse of a particle collapses all the others, both in the measuring instrument and in the quantum system. We try to solve these problems by envisaging a separate hermetic force for each probability amplitude of each particle in the measurement instrument. The hermetic force field clones the Gaussian curve, which takes the shape of the wave function of the instrument. Then, when the spontaneous collapse of a particle in the pointer of the instrument occurs, the virtual particles that emanate from one consciousness transmit this information to all other hermetic force fields of the particles in the measuring instrument and quantum system. However, both the measuring instrument and the quantum system remain in superposition, since the collapse of both the instrument and the quantum system are virtual and cognitive. In this manner, we hopefully provide a more viable interpretation of quantum mechanics, by utilizing a complementarity dynamic between consciousness and energy-matter. This basic duality of physics stems from Bohr’s conviction that the basic duality between the observer and observed is the essential dyad of being. Indeed, if a relationship between an observer and a physical system is all there is, the minimum condition of ontology is a dyad between dualities. This holds true, not only for physics, but also for ethics, as shown by the Dialogica philosophers, among them Kierkegaard and Buber. Croce and Collingwood assure us that history is generated by a relationship between the historian and his objects of study. Some major trends in religion and mysticism are patently dualistic, such as various branches of Gnosticism and Kabbala. Finally, evolution is effected by the relationship between the creature and his environment. We are now in a position to present a dualistic, existentialist interpretation of quantum mechanics.

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Existentialist Quantum Mechanics Let us begin at an apt starting point, the book of Genesis. The first verses state: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God said, Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.32

We present these opening verses not as the words of God, but as a very important creation myth. As we have mentioned, myths are a prime source of physical and mental reality, and this mytho-empiric approach forms a cornerstone of our wider theory. However, we wish to utilize the Genesis creation myth to show its basic dualistic conception of creation. The meaning of God’s name, “I am that I am” (the Hebrew Ehyeh asher Ehyeh) applies to both God and man. The repetition of the word ehyeh in Exodus, as interpreted by Kabbala, means that God and man reflect each other or, more precisely, that God is the reflection of the (inner) man.33 Ekhnaten, the monotheist Egyptian pharaoh, sang to his god, “You are in my heart. Only your son Ekhnaten knows you. You have revealed to him your thoughts; you are the essence.”34 God is revealed from within, and there is a one-to-one relationship between man and transcendence. “And though after my skin worms destroy my body,” says Job, “yet in my

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flesh shall I see God.”35 The body is perishable, but God may be perceived without it. The Kabbala, however, sees reciprocity between man and God. The Godhead’s presence lends consciousness to man, but God’s holy presence is also enclosed, encased, and virtually entrapped within the human body. It seems that God cannot perceive, act, or create within creation except through His creatures – His tools and modus operandi within temporality. The ani, as the unique consciousness at the core of all objects and life forms, is one, and the transcendental projection of this uniqueness is the unity of God. It filters through the objects and life forms in a kaleidoscopic manner so that it fits the peculiarities of life forms and objects. This is the meaning of theosophic Kabbala’s statement that both God and man consist of lights and containers (vessels). The light stems from the unity of infinity, while the containers are the bodies, which encase the lights. The kaleidoscopic flowing of divinity into and through objects and life forms explains the paradox of plurality in unity. Plurality has an infrastructure of unity, yet the appearances and perceptions of all life forms and objects are plural. This might also explain why God created man in His own image – the one inner image permeating everything and every creature. Thus, the inner, Divine essence of the plurality of creatures and things is identical, and only its outer garments differ from one another in endless permutations, so that each object and life form is unique. This is a reflection of the uniqueness of God; even within plurality, each emanant senses a unique unity vis-à-vis the unitarian uniqueness of the emanator. The timeless, spaceless, and atributeless ani, although unique, is present in all life forms, and may also be present in objects and artifacts as contained (canned) consciousness. We have mentioned the centrality of the universal consciousness (our ani) in mythological, theological, and mystical thought and experience. However, to avoid becoming mystics ourselves, we must find a method of identifying and reaching the ani-skewed self and, for that manner, the ani itself. With all its shortcomings, the best method seems to be the epoché, or Husserl’s phenomenological reduction. Husserl’s epoché is designed to achieve the same ends, and employs basically the same techniques as the mystics. The phenomenological voyage through reduction to the “transcendental pure self” is very much like St. John of the Cross’s ascent to Mount Carmel, in which, step by step, the attributes and appearances of spatio-temporality are extinguished, until one reaches the ethereal heights of the non-self, which is equivalent to Husserl’s pure self. Buddhist and Yoga methods are also phenomenological reductions in their own way, but our Occidental conditioning makes Husserl’s almost compulsive Teutonic

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orderliness more suitable to our purpose of discovering the ani. Husserl’s technique of “bracketing out” spatio-temporality, in order to reach the “pure self” has another advantage for us: he does not preclude the “reality” of the natural world as perceived by the individual. He simply tries to neutralize it in order to reach the core of the “pure self,” an approach that indeed suits the bi-polarity of our self continuum. We claim that the self functions through a dialectic interaction of its components, but in order to reach the ani, we “bracket out” and neutralize the atzmi, the interactive self, exactly as Husserl does in his phenomenological reduction. Our phenomenological reduction begins by positing ourselves at the center of an ontological drama. Our being is the cause and goal of all perceptions and phenomena since without us as audience everything around us loses its existence. Consequentially, Husserl’s “pure self” and our ani do not derive their being from perception and spatio-temporality. The ani is the ultimate, for which all appearances, sensations, and object relationships have been staged. This is more than a Cartesian cogito or Euclidean axiom. It is both an assumption and a hypothesis, proven by the irreducible fact of our being. This is the only way to prove our being, independent of perception and object relationships, and to show the feasibility of an objectless ani. If objects, flora, fauna, and others, as well as our own proprioceptors, are “out there” – a command performance for the ani as participant observer – there must be an ani. Both Husserl’s pure self and our ani are megalomaniacs. “As I am the Ego who invents the being of the world,” says Husserl, “I now also become aware that my own phenomenologically self-contained essence can be posited in an absolute sense.”36 If the whole of awareness, or for that matter the whole universe, performs for the ani, the curtain may be lowered, leaving the pure self (and our ani) in absolute, omnipresent loneliness. Husserl “disconnects” space, time, causality, science, culture, art, custom, law, and even God, until the stream of pure consciousness becomes pure nothingness. Phenomenological reduction is also dialectic insofar as it reaches the ani through the reduction or annihilation of everything into nothing. Only with the removal of the interfering objectsthings does the nothing become “pure,” an objectless ani. The phenomenological reduction allows the ani to “shine forth and show itself,” the original meaning of the Greek phainestai and the root of the word phenomenon. The ain, the holonic potential of energy-matter, is the singularity, a point with infinite matter density, infinite temperature, and infinite spacetime curvature. Physicists do not really know how to deal with this potential origin of the universe and its other holonic reflections. It cannot

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be located within space-time; rather, it is tangentially situated on its borders. There seems to be no comparative theory of singularities, probably because there is no theory of “quantum gravity.”37 However, there is a fair degree of consensus that a singularity was the potential ain in the Big Bang, as well as other “white hole” explosions. A singularity is also the ultimate fate of the Big Crunch and other dynamics of matter collapsing into Black Holes. All singularities are surrounded by an “event horizon,” which is the boundaries of extreme gravity, from within which even most of light cannot escape.38 We hold this event horizon to be the curtain from which energy emanates into history, because the singularity, as surrounded by the event horizon, is time-reversible. Immediately after the Big Bang, there was total symmetry and uniformity of energy, and the four fundamental forces of gravitation, electromagnetism, and the weak and the strong nuclear forces were not yet differentiated. The universe was filled with an undifferentiated “soup” of matter and radiation, each particle of which collided very rapidly with the other particles. Despite its rapid expansion, the universe was in a state of nearly perfect thermal equilibrium.39 Thus, in the beginning, all energy was symmetric, isomorphic, and homogenous. Differentiation of forces and coagulation of matter came later. Indeed, Einstein’s lifelong dream was to find a unified theory of physics. Although not entirely successful, Steven Weinberg, Abdus Salam, Sheldon Glashow, and Stephen Hawking have made giant strides towards the unification of physical theory.40 Even if the grand unifying theories (GUTS) in physics have not yet succeeded in incorporating gravity within their domain, the common, homogenous origin of all energy-manner is enough to contrast it with the historical, non-physical, universal ani consciousness. The question is how the vectorial consciousness is transmitted to the measuring instrument or, for that matter, to any other artifact, and thence to the measured physical system or other target. The communicability of the Mythogenic Structure stems from its content, which is what we term the Tantalus Ratio (TR). The TR is the dialectic between the ani participant vector, ever aiming to merge into the totality of unity, and the atzmi object-bound separant vector. The ani consciousness-vector is anchored on attributeless non-historicity, while the aztmi vector incorporates an intended object manipulation (in our case the physical system). The vectors interact to create the dialectic TR, which is thence structured within the symbolon connecting agent as its contents. The vectors, we should recall, are fashioned after the unrealizable goals of

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the Tantalic and Sisyphean meta-myths. The vectorial teleology of our mythogene is based precisely on the impossibility of achieving its aims. This makes it an insatiable and, hence, an ever energizing prime mover. There is still no comprehensive theory on the link between consciousness and energy-matter on the quantum level, although there is a fair amount of consensus as to the existence of such a link. This may be contrasted with the profusion of attempts to bridge between the basic dualities of the macro world: Descartes’ bridging of consciousness and objects by the meditation of the good and truthful God, five hundred years of German philosophy trying to link epistemology and ontology, and more recently the existentialist striving to achieve dialogue with the other through the inner self. We hold this division between macro and micro worlds to be necessary, and justified, by their apparent nature and divergence. Otherwise, unwarranted hypotheses might be proffered. A recent exposition, for instance, trying to link mind and quantum mechanics has posited an isomorphism between quantum and macroscopic states, especially in respect of superposition.41 As the theory propounded by Lockwood posits no limit to the macrosuperposition state, that state could encompass both the whole universe and the observer.42 The world, with all its galaxies and nebulae, is thus dragged back from limbo into reality by a conscious act of observation. This, to us, is untenable. Superposition is an attribute of waves. Even if we take particles to be packets of waves, as do de Broglie and Schrödinger, then after they are structured into atoms, molecules, and organisms, Pauli’s exclusion principle would not allow more than one fermion (matter particle of spin ½) per state. Hence, these original wave packets (particles) are not likely to allow other masses of wave packets to compete for the same exclusive positions. For living organisms, such going in and out of superposition would entail death and resurrection. We hold, therefore, that superposition is an attribute of unbound waves and the “fuzzy” quantum world. Thus, structured matter and organisms in the macro world cannot be subject to superposition. This view is shared by Penrose,43 Lockwood’s principle supporter. Moreover, we hold that consciousness is non-spatiotemporal. Hence, it cannot be superposed. Finally, the posited isomorphism between the quantum and macro worlds ignores the uncertainty barrier, which allows no direct observation of the superposed, unstructured micro world “behind” it. Thus, we hypothesize a multiplicity of energy-matter states, ranging from the potential ain-singularity, through the fuzzy, unstructured, superposed quantum world and the atom, to molecules, objects, and life forms.

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Consciousness, on the other hand, is unique. Quantum theoreticians are currently attempting to link consciousness with some measurable, observable, or quantum processes in the brain. Thus, Penrose explains this unity of consciousness by the quantum correlation phenomenon (such as the particles flying in opposite directions in the EPR and Bell’s inequality violation experiments). Says Penrose: Quantum physics involves many highly intriguing and mysterious kinds of behavior. Not the least of these are the quantum correlations which can occur over widely separated distances. It seems to me to be a definite possibility that such things could be playing a role in conscious thoughtmodes. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suggest that quantum correlations could be playing an operative role over large regions of the brain. Might there be any relation between a “state of awareness” and a highly coherent quantum state in the brain? Is the ‘oneness’ or ‘globality’ that seems to be a feature of consciousness connected with this? It is somewhat tempting to believe so.44

Lockwood goes further, citing the cases of patients whose corpus callosum has been severed and who consequentially display two different streams of consciousness.45 This, as Lockwood notes, is not entirely accurate, because the Gestalt nature of the brain induces one hemisphere to develop or sublimate the functions of the other. Such relative unity is regained through the unsevered brain stem. This, however, is unacceptable to us. We may readily answer Penrose’s query as to the source of the cognitive unity of consciousness. We see it stemming from the unity of the ani consciousness, which is reflected indeterministically in the consciousness of all life forms and deterministically in the contained consciousness of all artifacts and objects. The differences between the cognitive conceptions of each life form are related to their specific bio-psycho-social configuration, which, indeed, renders their consciousness sui generis. In artifacts and objects of art, the contained consciousness varies according to the purpose, use, or message they are meant to convey. As for Sperry’s split-brain patients, even if their “split mind” is not rectified through the Gestalt functions of the hemispheres and brain stems, both minds still reflect a single ani consciousness. Every mental and physical function is either generated or mediated by the brain. However, the ani consciousness, a non-historic structure, plays an important role as well.

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Let There Be Light We accept Wheeler’s dictum that observer and observed collaborate in the act of creation. We hold that Kierkegaard and Buber’s dialogica existentialism indeed explains how the ani, the archetypal observer, interacts with and initiates the processes of becoming. Buber postulates that “primary words” are spoken from the innermost being. Primary words signify the existence of a relationship. “Primary words do not describe something that might exist independently of them, but being spoken they bring about existence.”46 We hold that the primary word concept, articulated by the ani consciousness, is a revelatory event which structures the mythogene, the Logos, the primary word – spoken not in isolation but as an intentional dialogue – and which already entails an I-Thou or an I-It relationship. This fits our model, insofar as the Tantalus Ratio, structured within the mythogene, contains within it an integration of the ani consciousness and energy-matter. Our atzmi, the interactive component of our self, is a conceptualization of one such integration. Hence, the speaking of a primary word integrates the I-Thou of the ani and the I-It of the atzmi into a self contained unit, which stems from the self, but is directed towards the object. The primary utterance thus initiates the process of creation, or rather provides a vectorial seed or tool of creation, the essence of our connecting Mythogenic Structure. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”47 This primary word-concept forms a Mythogenic Structure directed at creation, serving as its primary tool. Our prospective critics should not be too hasty. We rely on the Bible not for a priori proof of our model on the relationship between consciousness and the quantum world, but as a prime source of authentic myths. According to our mytho-empirical method, mytho-empiricism is the unitization of myths, not as illustrations for our theoretical premises, but as empirical anchors of the latter, since, as discussed earlier, myths have long been regarded by respected scholars as reliable records of events before written history in ille tempore. Gnosis and Kabbala are the most suitable mytho-empirical anchors for our personality model. Gnostic dualism draws from the mythical basis of many Gnostic religions in the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. Kabbala is anthropocentric; it envisages a less-than-perfect God, who is perennially searching for ways to “mend” Himself (tikkun). There is a marked interrelationship between Gnosis and Kabbala. Both display a transcendental projection of the longing of man’s participant core personality vector to revert to its perfect origins. This goal is never

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attained. Man’s separant, activist core vector may also interact with transcendence. According to the Kabbala’s theurgic conception of manGod relationship, all man’s deeds have an immediate bearing on transcendence. Indeed, our separant-participant personality dialectic is reflected in the Kabbalist core dynamics as attested by Scholem, “The consensus of Kabbalistic opinion regards the mystical way to God as a reversal of the process by which we have emanated from God. To know the stages of the creative process is also to know the stages of one’s own return to the root of all existence.”48 Freud may have been influenced by Jewish mysticism when he developed psychoanalysis, especially the notion of the unconscious. There is no doubt however, that Rabbi Isaac Luria shared Freud’s insight, boldness, and innovation when he postulated a theologically problematic, blemished God, as well as the theurgic, symbiotic partnership between man and God. Myths may also structure the meaning of human behavior, motivating both individuals and groups. Since myths are projected models of human behavior on all levels, they record past experiences and provide a structure for future goals. Myths are an expression of overt behavior, as well as of covert dynamics, of the here and now of transcendence. Their dimensions may vary greatly, ranging from micro-myths, such as names of people and places, which express experiences or quests, to meta-myths, such as the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus. Myths vary with time and place. Every society and culture has its own indigenous mythology. There is continuity in the sacred myths of the pre-history to modern myths, such as those of the detectives Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, John Le Carré’s master spy, Smiley, or Superman. Myths can relate to individuals. Two examples are the offering of Isaac and Iphigenia, signifying the sacrificial enmeshing of the young within the normative system of society. Others are group myths, such as the adventures of the Olympian gods and the tribal exploits of the German Aesir. Indeed, the Nazi movement may be studied as a collective myth. The empirical value of a myth is directly related to the frequency with which it occurs in different cultures, and to its prominence within the mythology of a given culture. An apparent inconsistency in a myth does not necessarily harm its mytho-empirical value, and in many cases may even enhance it. An illustration is the Kabbalistic myth of the “breaking of the vessels,” which depicts the actual sequence of human birth, presenting a less-than-perfect God who cannot prevent catastrophic events in the cosmogony. The need to project the process of birth on transcendence in mythical form resulted in the growth of this myth and its equivalents in other cultures, despite the antecedent theological problems.

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Myths may be classified along a continuum. At one end of a particular pole, we find the “bad me,” early orally fixated type surrounded by “good objects,” as well as the ethical myths of the Tantalic cultures, in which boundaries of laws and morals provide “checks and balances” on the unruly separant “me.” At the other end of the pole, we find the separant, later orally fixated “good me,” surrounded and limited by “bad objects” and competing life forms, as well as the Sisyphean myths of aesthetics, order, heroism, strife, and dominion over man and nature. Judaic myths are more participant, whereas Greek and Germanic myths are situated near the extreme separant pole of the continuum. For the latter, Heaven and Hell simply constitute different planes of the concrete world. Blood, as a source of tribal and racial identity, was idealized and mythologized by the Sisyphean German culture, but shunned by the Tantalic Judaic myths and social character. Separant cosmogonic myths involve the recording of ever existing matter, while the participant cosmogonic myths depict the transition from nonbeing into being, which is considered as “death” or exile from the timelessness and boundlessness of spirituality. Participant characteristics are linked to parental moralizing and the inculcation of norms through surrogate sacrifice. Separant normative characteristics are related, on the other hand, to the maternal organization of pragmatic routines, linked to procreation and the rearing of the family. Hence, Tantalic myths are patrinormative, whereas the Sisyphean myths are largely matrinormative. The separant myths, in keeping with their corresponding social character, tend to be logical and rational, unlike the more intuitive and irrational participant myths. It is important to note that separant myths are time-bound, whereas participant myths transcend time, tending towards the a-historical and circular. The Sisyphean myths, like the Egyptian and German ones, are diachronic, moving from one point in time to another; whereas the Tantalic myths, like the Judaic, are synchronic, meaning that time spans either overlap, or are non-existent. As the ani consciousness is a universal unity which is reflected in all consciousnesses, it may account for the universal basis of myths, such as the Fall from Grace, the sacrificing of young gods, the slaying of the (incestuous) snakes, the breaking of the cosmic vessels (birth), as well as the unitary participant God. The plurality of consciousness, on the other hand, provides mythology with the projection of experiential myths and the plurality of Gods and forces, as projected by the historical experiences of the separant ethnicities and the Sisyphean forces of nature. Our mytho-empirical method postulates that myths are projections of the unachievable goals of our core vectors. Hence God the creator, the Deus Faber, is the unattainable perfection sought by our core vector. Thus,

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the projection of our less-than-perfect selves is the Homo faber, the human mortal creator. This mytho-empirical image of God starting the process of creation by a Mythogenic Structure is an archetypal projection of all processes of creation. The ani consciousness creates the mythogenic vectorial structure, which already contains the maquette, the seed in which it will integrate with energy-matter to form the actual Promethean holon. This could be, mutatis mutandis, a quantum particle, an artifact, or a creature. Returning to the creation myth of Genesis, we find that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”49 Here again the faulty King James version of the Bible confounds the meaning. The original Hebrew says that the spirit of God hovered over the face of the water. There is no direct contact between the spirit of God, which we hold to be a mythoempirical projection of the ani consciousness, and the water, a projection of the “primordial soup” of energy-matter. In order to effect an integration, i.e., form a Mythogenic Structure, between these two elements, the Divine word (the Logos) should be introduced into the synaptic junction between the ani consciousness and energy-matter, and thus effect a creation. These Mythogenic Structures precede any act of creation involving the integration of consciousness and energy-matter, be it a poem, a painting, or an instrument for quantum measurement. Integrations of consciousness and energy taking place on the quantum micro level cannot be consciously perceived or remembered by creatures, because they take place in the unconscious. Yet it is very likely that the processes of memory, thought, intuition, and emotions are based on micro dynamics taking place on the quantum level behind the uncertainty barrier. These basic processes are integrated, however, within the personality through the ani consciousness and are then projected onto mythology as experiential myths. Scientific analysis of mythology may divulge information not only on the personality structure and social character, but also on quantum mechanics. On the conscious level, we have shown elsewhere that human perception is not only holistic, but also selective, depending on the biopsycho-social configuration of a given individual.50 On the biological level, a hungry individual would tend to be more attracted by gastronomic stimuli. On the personality level, Petrie’s ingenious experiments show that some individuals tend to augment or reduce incoming stimuli, and that these are stable personality traits.51 In a similar vain, Zuckermann has demonstrated that some people are hungry for stimuli, whereas others are averse to them, again demonstrated in basic personality patterns.52 Selection at the social level is illustrated by the binocular rivalry in a tachistoscope, where two different images flicker simultaneously before

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viewers of different cultures. An American for instance, tends to see a baseball game, whereas the Spaniard perceives a bullfight. On the anthropological level, Whorf hypothesizes that the whole process of perception is determined by cultural predisposition. Perception is selective, according to the relative importance, meaning, and values ordained by a given culture. Consequentially, the bio-psycho-social configuration of an individual determines the selectivity of his perception on the structuring of mythogenes for his ad hoc or long-range creativity. Such selectivity is intentional and hence, indeterministic. The scientist’s decision to build a photon detector in the double-slit experiment is an indeterministic vectorial decision. However, the contained consciousness exercised by the measuring instrument is deterministic. It has no choice but to measure the photons passing through one or both slits. The human experimenter can decide indeterministically to shut off the measuring instrument and then to direct the diffraction wave pattern onto the photographic screen. However, this choice is made by the human consciousness and not by the contained consciousness of the instrument, which is geared only to perform specific tasks. It is interesting to note that a quantum state is mathematically represented as a complex Hilbert vector space. It consists of vectors, or directional arrows of force, denoted both as real and imaginary numbers. This necessity to describe a quantum state by both real and imaginary numbers stems from the dualistic essence of the quantum state, as an integration (represented by a complex number) of measurable, diachronic, separant energy (denoted by real numbers) and the participant, nonmeasurable, synchronic, ani consciousness (denoted by imaginary numbers).

The Anthropic Principle If the mytho-empiricism of Greek time is diachronic (Chronos devoured his children), then the Judaic sacred time is synchronic. In the Bible, God is denoted in Heberw as Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, the present-future tense of a continuous now. God, in Hebrew is called hamakom, the place. He is the place of His world, but the world is not His (only) place. Hence, he is omnipotent and therefore boundless.53 In Gnosis, man is marooned in diachronic spatio-temporality dominated by the vile Demiourgos. The alien, good God, however, hovers outside history in the spaceless, timeless nothingness.54 Yet this nothingness, the lack, the Hebrew ain, is our prime mover. Although diachronic and synchronic time constitutes two modes of existence, they interact through the Mythogenic Structure containing both

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diachronic components of existential memories and synchronic constituents of longing. Thus they coexist in a maieutic complementarity. We hold that the evolutionary viability of the human being is his ability to experience history and to give meaning to this experience through synchronic revelation. This maieutic relationship between experience and revelation that is inherent in the Mythogenic Structure, enables man to link creatively between his consciousness and his objective and human surroundings. It also unearths the deeper meaning of The Anthropic Principle. The term Weak Anthropic Principle sounds tautologous; perhaps it is. It states roughly that if man is present in the universe, its condition and background must have enabled his evolution. Barrow and Tipler give a more formal and precise definition of the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP): The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable, but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirement that the universe be old enough for it to have already done so.55

The WAP is a post facto statement that if conditions were different (i.e., if Pauli’s exclusion principle did not exist and all fermions could cram together on one orbit around the atom’s nucleus), life as we know it would not exist. Or as Hawking rightly observes, the digestive tract from mouth to rectum would cut all animals into two if the world had two spatial dimensions instead of three.56 Finally, for life to appear, the evolutionary process needs time – billions of years. Hence, its explosive expansion from the original Big Bang would be measured by billions of light years.57 The human life form, being the most elaborated psycho-physically, requires a very delicate and complex range of possibilities and structures to be formed and sustained. Even small changes in temperatures, gravity and electromagnetic equilibrium would have prevented life from forming, or destroyed it if it had already arisen. The Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP) posits that, “The universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history.”58 The SAP is not probabilistic, but is categorical in its teleology. It postulates the evolution of life and of man as a necessary corollary and aim, telos, of the creation of the world. The SAP seems to imply a theological, theosophical, and even theurgical need for the creation of man. In extremo, the SAP is manifest in Teilhard de Chardin’s teleological doctrine, in which man is not only the irreplaceable goal of

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creation, but also its infallible end.59 Kabbalist theurgy also entails a SAP. The whole notion of the kabbalist tikkun, the human mending of a blemished God, makes man theosophically indispensable. Says Idel: Jewish theurgical anthropology strikes utterly different chords; the problem is basically the need of the divinity for human help, or human power, in order to restore the lost sefirotic harmony. The focus of the Kabbalistic theurgy is God, not man; the latter is given unimaginable powers, to be used in order to repair the Divine glory or the Divine image; only his initiative can improve divinity. An archmagician, the theurgical kabbalist does not need external help or grace; his mode of operating through the Torah enables him to be independent; he looks not so much for salvation by the intervention of God as for God’s redemption by human intervention. The theurgical Kabbala articulates a basic feature of Jewish religion in general: because he concentrates more upon action than upon thought, the Jew is responsible for everything, including God, since his activity is crucial for the welfare of the cosmos in general. Accordingly, no speculation of faith can change the exterior reality, which must be rescued from its fallen state. The metaphor of the shadow points to the reinforcement of the theurgical trend precisely by its strong delineation of the human and the Divine; only by retaining his own individuality can the theurgical kabbalist retain his cosmic influence… Man is therefore an extension of the Divine on earth; his form and soul not only reflect the Divine but also actually are Divine – hence, the interdiction against killing a person. Its real meaning is not the fact, emphasized in rabbinic sources, that man is a whole world, a world in itself, but that his micro-cosmos is a Divine monad. Destroying a person is tantamount to diminishing not only the Divine form on earth but, as the text puts it, Divine powers itself. Man is conceived as a source of energy parallel to or perhaps even essentially identical with, the Divine.60

Thus, God is tantamount to the “Shadow of Man”61 because without man, God could not be theurgically “mended.” For a maieutic complementarity between body and mind, diachronicity and synchronicity, and experience and longing within the mythogene, no coercive ascendancy should take place of one component in the diad over another. This is also the condition precedent for any I-Thou dialogue. The mytho-empirical injunction against hubris in Greek mythology, the metanorms of meden agan (nothing in the excess), and metron ariston (the Golden Mean), try to protect the organism from disruption and the polis from internal strife. These are time-tested assurances for Darwinian survival. However, we also have the injunction against overweening pride. In Judaism, there is the directive: “And to walk humbly with the Lord.”62

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“Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.” 63 In Hassidism, there is the concept of tzimtzum – where God contracts himself to form the archetypal man thus enabling a complementary dialogue with human being. The link between diachronicity and synchronicity is miraculous and holy. To use Rudolf Ottoe’s phrase, it is a mysterium tremendum,64 an overwhelming mystery. Indeed, the Burning Bush is one such mythoempirical epiphany of the sacred. The tangential history and the continuous, yet non-anthropic, burning of the bush rendered it a theophany, and the place where it happened, a sacred meeting point between history and the Divine.65 Ritualistic reenactments of myths perform the same function. Examples are passion plays and the Purim Spiel. These link diachronicity and synchronicity, the absolute and the relative, so that the seemingly unbridgeable rift between the temporal and the eternal are linked by the bonding mythogene. The Mythogenic Structure contains, as we may recall, both diachronic and synchronic elements, and this enhances its bonding role. The Burning Bush as a bridging Mythogenic Structure between history and synchronicity is strictly Judaic. In Greek mythology, spatio-temporality encompassed all levels of existence, both sacred and profane. The upper level was occupied by the Olympians; the earth and sea was home to all mortal creatures including man, and the lower level, Tartarus, incarcerated those who were doomed in hell. Similarly, in Mesopotamia, the transition from heaven to hell was within time and space. Thus the descent of Inanna the Sumerian Queen of Heaven to the underworld was literally a voyage from a world above to a world below.66 Finally, the transition of the deceased in Egypt from Horean East to the Osirian West was from one complex of space and time to another, both having ground, rivers, life forms, food and drink. Mytho-empirically, the bonding between history and synchronicity is by ritual and sacrifice. In Greece, the sacrifices were of two kinds: one was a business transaction: “Holiness,” says Socrates in Euthyphron, “is an art in which gods and men do business with each other.”67 This quid pro quo in a sacrifice to the Gods is denoted șİȡĮʌİȚĮ Theropeia, meaning that if man fulfills his part in this transaction by offering sacrifices to the Greek anthropomorphic divinities, or renders them any service, the Gods will reciprocate.68 This do ut des sacrificial barter with the Gods may result in a fear of evil spirits. It is the sacrifice to the Gods that keeps away do ut habeas.69 Thus a burnt whole sacrifice (holocauston) is offered to Zeus Melichios, the chthonic snake-like deity of the underworld. This exorcises evil spirits or keeps away the the Erinyes, the evil fates.70 The

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sacrifices and the offering to avert the cruel fates are utilitarian. The Greeks do not have, like the Jews, sacrifices to assert a belief in a synchronic abstract God. Of interest is the tearing to pieces of boys, kings and Gods by the Dionysian priestesses and camp followers like the Bacchae and Maenads. In this manner, they ingest their Moana power.71 A Christian parallel is the ingestion of the Host – Christ’s body – and the drinking of the sacramental wine, the Savior’s blood. This constitutes a fusion, a synthesis of the worshippers’ diachronic existence with the synchronic holiness of the Messiah. This is a literal enthousiasmos; the entering of God into man in the most concrete manner possible. One can see an ingenious bonding between diachronicity and synchronicity in ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh is both a king and a God: Horus. As king, the Pharaoh rules the double kingdom of mortals and Gods. As the “heavenly Horus” he is a member of the Pantheon which includes Osiris and Re. However, the synchronic timelessness of Horus is asserted by the pyramid texts as having existed before heaven and earth.72 Hence every new Pharaoh, the diachronic king, becomes a timeless Horus. This assures the continuous complementarity between earth and heaven necessary for the stability of temporal sequences and guarantees the viability of Egypt, dependent on the cyclic constancy of the Nile’s tides. Horus is son of Osiris, the ruler of the West, to where the deceased are relegated. As every Horus becomes an Osiris, there is a continuous succession between diachronicity and synchronicity. This son-father relationship between an historical king-God and a transcendental God make for the mediation between history and transcendence, and the pleading for the welfare, prosperity and wellbeing of Egypt and its people before the ordaining powers of the Osirian West.73 We have denoted the movement of the Pharaoh towards transcendence as extasis, in the Greek sense. That is, the quest to leave diachronicity and reach synchronicity. In Mesopotamia the discretion is reversed from transcendence to history. We have called this dynamic enthousiasmos which endows creation, or objects and life forms, with Divinity. Thus when the Gods had to fight the Goddess Tiamat, the embodiment of chaos – tehomot in Hebrew – and their primeval mother, they sat in council and delegated their Divine authority to Marduk, the son of Ea, the God of Water and Wisdom.74 The council of the Gods deliberated and decided in a manner similar to parliaments in democracies. They also conferred with Mes, the Divine laws, which governed creation and its creatures. This “rule of law” demanded that only those who possess these Mes could legislate rules of conduct to human beings. When Marduk subdued and

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killed Tiamat, he also slaughtered Kingu, her consort, and deprived him of the Mes given to him by his mistress.75 This rather unique system of legislation in the ancient Near East was necessary to set limits on the harsh, cruel, and arbitrary relationship between Gods, man, and nature. Diachronic time was mytho-empiricized by Chronos (time) consuming his children in Greek mythology. The equivalent in Babylonian mythology is Marduk. He created space and time by splitting Tiamat, the mother of the Gods, into two. One half became the sky, and the other half, the earth. He designed twelve constellations for each of the twelve months and the days of the year.76 The Enuma Elish, Assyro-Babylonian Epic of Creation refers to Marduk’s carving of Tiamat and the creation of the world from it carcass as a work of art. This implies that he imbued his Divine inspiration into an otherwise profane carcass.77 Marduk created man out of the blood of the evil Kingu, Tiamat’s general, unlike the Judaic Adam, who was created in God’s image. The human beings of the Enuma Elish were just domestic helpers so that the Gods “might be at ease.”78 This master-slave relationship meant that the Gods followed the lifestyle of the idle rich while man, the beast of burden, did all the menial labor. Finally, unlike the Pharaoh, who was born as a God, the Mesopotamian king was a mortal. Only later was divinity conferred on him by the Gods as an act of grace.79 The orderly cycles of nature that were ordained by the God Ma’at were projected by the Egyptians onto transcendence with the expectation that the Osirian God in the West (the realm of the dead) would continue the orderly temporal sequences which assured the viability of Egypt. In contrast, the tumultuous, treacherous and arbitrary Mesopotamian Gods imposed their tyranny on creation and its life forms with their rules Mes. In this way, their “work of art” would not revert back to chaos and to Tiamat, the primal enemy and Wiedergeist of the Babylonian Pantheon. As for Judaism, we have the Mosaic revolution in its purest form envisaging a timeless, formless God with whom one can converse through words, and through Moses, with stammering and garbled speech. The Wiedergeist of the Mosaic synchronic abstract God is the cyclic Egyptian time. The flow and ebb of the Nile and concrete, visible Gods secured the continuous life-giving powers of Nature. However, the synchronic purism of the Mosaic cult suffered a setback with the episode of the Golden Calf,80 which was a statue of Nut, the Queen of Heaven. When Moses reprimanded his brother Aaron for fashioning the Golden Calf, Aaron defended himself by saying that he had had no choice.81 These “stiffnecked” Hebrew slaves, admired the culture and religion of their Egyptian former masters. They had no ability to grasp the essence of an abstract God, nor His eternal synchronic being without a beginning and with no

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end. If Aaron had not complied with their wishes to mold a concrete God, they would probably have killed him. Aaron warned Moses that death would probably be his, and the entire tribe of Levi’s fate, had he not complied and provided a God that could be observed. This is how the pure Mosaic creed of an abstract and synchronic God underwent a change, a compromise, in accordance with the wishes of the slaves influenced by Egyptian practices. This change was the construction of a Tabernacle, a place where God dwelt. Hence the omnipotent Mosaic God had to contract himself in order to abide by the confines of the Tabernacle tent. With the Rivazic revolution after the destruction of the Second Temple, the compromise of the Tabernacle was relinquished and Judaism reverted back to its original Mosaic purism. Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakai (The Rivaz) ordained that the belief in God and the study of the Torah was more central to Judaism than sacrifices and the Temple rituals.82 In this, he shared the view of some of the prophets.83 The Torah was indeed synchronic as there was no concept of earlier or later in the Torah.84 Thus the synchronicity of the Torah means that the people of Israel were deemed to have been present at Mount Sinai when the Torah was given, irrespective of whether they were historically present.85 Indeed, those who study the Torah are considered to harbour the Shechina, the Holy Presence, 86 and the Shechina is one of the synchronic countenances of God. Hence the study of the Torah “raises” the scholars from diachronicity onto the synchronicity of the Divine Presence.

A Blemished God At the end of the fifteenth century the Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. Most were subject to the horrors of murder, rape, and pillage before reaching a safe haven in Islamic or Slavic communities. Many were also forcefully converted. This expulsion and disruption of the Iberian Jewish community, in which more than sixty per cent of the world Jewry were ravaged or perished, was the worst holocaust suffered by the Jews, except for the destruction of the European Jews in the Second World War. The Lurianic Kabbala of sixteenth century Safed87 reacted by saying that a God who could not avert or prevent the catastrophe of the exile cannot be perfect, or omnipotent. Thus Rabbi Haim Vital, the foremost disciple of Itzhak Luria, conceived of a less-than-perfect, or blemished, God. There was a catastrophe in God’s cosmology resulting in the breaking of the cosmic vessels.88 The sparks of God’s Divinity were thus strewn from synchronicity into the mires of diachronicity in history. Man’s task was, therefore, to find the sparks and return them to their holy source

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in synchronicity. This is man’s “mending” of a blemished God. For this purpose, man has to travel back and forth from synchronicity to diachronicity. The Ba’al Shem Tov, the Besht, the founder of the Hassidic movement, taught that one should imbue synchronic Divinity into daily diachronic tasks. “Enoch,” he said, “was a cobbler and with each stitch of the shoes’ leather he bonded God, may His name be blessed, and the Shechina, the Holy Presence.”89 The Maggid of Meseritz, successor to the Besht, had a diametrically opposing idea of how to effect a bond between history and transcendence. The Maggid says of the quietist extasy, ascent, from diachronicity to the nothingness of synchronicity, “The wisdom is within reach of the worthy, yet in order to reach it, they have to think they are dust.”90 “Wisdom,” he goes on, “is nothingness,” paraphrasing a verse from Job – “Wisdom is to be found in nothingness.”91 The negation of the historic self into the synchronicity of nothingness “restores,” according to the Maggid, “the unity which was disturbed by the work of creation … and the will of man becomes identical with the will of God.”92 An interesting complementarity between the doctrines of the Maggid and the Besht may be found in the teachings of Ya’akov Yosef of Polnoy, a disciple of the Besht. He advocates a balance between the spiritual and the somatic as the body is the seat of the soul.93 The soul longs to revert back to its origin in Divinity, but that would leave the body lifeless and unable to study the Torah. Hence the talmid chacham, the religious scholar, has to stop studying and take care of the body so that it can sustain the soul. This is the meaning of the dictum of Resh Lakish, an early mishnaic scholar, that the temporal study of the Torah is its upholding. This is Ya’akov Yosef’s interpretation of the Kabbalistic doctrine of ratzo vashov, the dialectical movement of to and fro.94 The soul may long to leave the body and return Also, our contention is that the souls’ longing in itself may be the prime mover for the enlightening revelation which is a precursor to creativity. Ya’akov Yosef’s doctrine of ratzo vashov is relevant to our present context as the soul is synchronic and the body is its diachronic throne. Ya’akov Yosef sees also man as a micro-cosmos, combining the spiritual timeless spark of God and the temporal body. In this he was the precursor of the modern Anthropic Principle,95 which regards the human being as the evolutionary apex combining psyche and soma in the most effective way. We may hypothesize that Homo Sapiens will eventually be dethroned by a more effective bonding structure between history and transcendence. Ya’akov Yosef boldly applied his doctrine of ratzo vashov to his view that one can also worship God with the evil inclination. No thing or life

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form in diachronicity can be devoid of the synchronic sparks of Divinity. Hence, the worthy, who are steeped in the mires of history, can still be derserving by theurgically raising the sparks from profanity to God, so mending Him.96 According to Martin Buber, who distilled Hassidic thought including the link between diachronicity and synchronicity, the authentic dialogue between the I and Thou is the ontological reality which may be petrified into an I-It disjunction. However, the Eternal Thou, the epiphany of God for Buber,97 may be revealed within the here-and-now. Thus Buber’s notion of a dialogue between man in history and transcendence is similar to Ya’akov Yosef of Polnoy’s ideas. According to Buber, the Eternal Thou can never be in diachronicity as He is always in the continuous now.98 However, when the I in the here-and-now is revealed to the Eternal Now, the I effects a dialogical bonding between history and transcendence. The mytho-empirical representation of temporality in the ancient Middle East is Thoth. In Hermopolitan Theology he was the originator of time. He was the moon God. He won light from the moon in a game of draughts. The light he won was used to create the five intercalary days.99 He then derived the months, the years and the seasons. As moon God, he took the place of Re in the sky at night. Re, the sun God, struggled during the night with the primeval snake Apophis in the under-world. Thoth kept the archives and was thus also the deity of history. He was responsible for the orderly succession of the Pharaohs and therefore had influence over the cyclic passage of time in the Osirian West. Each Pharaoh-Horus became an Osiris after his death. Although the inhabitants of the West became immortal, Egyptian mythology has no real synchronicity. Each new Pharaoh and each successful migrant from the East to the West impacted on the Osirian Domain and served as an ambassador pleading for the intervention of the West in the cyclic diachronicity of the East, especially for the life-blood of the people, the orderly tides and ebbs of the Nile. It seems that the Egyptian East and West are entwined in a symbolic relationship of mortality and immortality, the sacred and the profane, and yet, all within the realm of diachronic time sequences. One can say that the interrelationship between the Horean East and the Osirian West constitutes the dialogical ontology of the Egyptian social character. In Mesopotamia there is the early Sumerian poem about Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth.100 She planted the huluppu tree to grow and thicken so that she could fashion her throne from it.101 The poem starts with cadences of time: In the first days, in the very first days In the first nights, in the very first nights

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It conveys the impression that the passage of diachronic time precedes the creation of forms. Moreover, the formation of space was complementary to the sequences of time as the scaffolding for the work of creation: When heaven had moved away from earth And earth had separated from heaven… When the Sky God, An, had carried off the heaven, And the Air God, Enlil, had carried off the earth, When the Queen of the Great Below Ereshkigal, was given the underworld for her domain He set sail, the Father set sail, Enlil God of Wisdom set sail for the under-world.103

Time and space were thus structured into a setting within which the exploits of Gods and humans could be enacted in ferocious dramas of love and war. We have already mentioned that the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, depicts the alternation of day and night as the basis for temporal diachronicity, and that Madruk split apart his mother, Tiamat, to build the universe from the segments of her body.104 Time and space are infrastructures that are created for cosmogony and anthropogony to take place. The most conspicuous instance of mytho-empiricism concerning creativity is the relationship between synchronicity and diachronicity in Zurvanism. This now-extinct branch of Zoroastrinism evolved around 500 BCE. The Pahlevi documents from this period105 held that Zurvan was the God of infinite time and space. He sacrificed and conceived Ohrmuzd, the good, and his doubt created the vile Ahriman. It is worth mentioning that in occidental philosophy, such as Carterianism and Existentialism, doubt is seen as a tool that bodes truth. Paul Tillich goes further to say that doubt is a necessary manifestation of the religious experience. As Zurvan existed before creation, he was alone and infinite in his eternal synchronicity. He was therefore infinitesimally lonely. In Firdausi’s Epic of the Kings, Zurvan felt no pain, no joy and therefore, his existence had no meaning,106 He created his two sons, and with them the whole of creation, in order to have relationships with His surroundings through finite time. These relationships gave meaning to his existence, which, in eternity was devoid of meaning. Zurvan’s doubt which signifies his imperfection, led to the creation of evil Ahriman. There is also a conflictual dialectic between Ohrmuzd (worth) and the evil Ahriman, thus

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lending meaning to Zurvan’s existence in finite time. It actually creates the space-time aquarium in which man and other life forms can exist. The mytho-empirical relationship between the synchronic infinite Zurvan and the diachronic finite Zurvan should be linked to the continuum between the potentiality of boundless and timeless early orality and the actualization of spatio-temporal differentiation at later orality. Since both our personality theory and our conception of the social character are based on the dialogue between early and later orality, Zurvanism seems to be the most suitable mytho-empirical anchor for our theory. Indeed, Zurvan of infinite time, with His synchronic no-time and abstract non-spatiality, is early orally fixated. The later oral Zurvan is finitely fixated diachronically on the time and space of history. This differentiation is replete with the continuum of complementarities between the “bad me” surrounded by the good object Ohrmuzd of early orality, and the “good me” encompassed by Ahriman the bad object of later orality. Graphically, this may be represented as follows:

Good me

Bad me

Bad object later oral fixation

Good object early oral fixation

The subject of Zurvan is ever eternal and part of the timeless and spaceless macrocosmos. The object of the finite Zurvan is embodied in historic man and creation formed by Ahriman. Timeless Zurvan is impotent while Deus Faber the finite Zurvan is always prodded and bullied by the evil Ahriman. An essential part of the creed of Zurvanism is that the doubt of infinite time brought about the creation of Evil Ahriman.107 Zurvan’s imperfection makes for the creation of both vileness, Ahriman, and worth, Ohrmuzd. They interact with Zurvan and, then after some thousands of years, a purging catharsis occurs in which Zurvan reverts to his infinite synchronic inaction: the impotent perfection of nothingness. Yet love, passion, and meaningful dialogue cannot take place within the sterile solipsism of perfection. Hence creation enables this primary bonding of love and meaningful dialogue. The imperfection inherent in the concept of doubt felt by infinite Zurvan creates both good and evil, which for us is the mytho-empirical manifestation of the developmental dialectics of early and later orality. However, evil which is the fount of suffering lends, by sublimation, depth to creativity, which is the prime source of meaning in man’s life. For Zurvan, creation is the process of becoming out of chaos;

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creation sanctifies processes and not goals.108 This is our conception of the authentic element in creativity which gleans satisfaction out of the paths of creation and not necessarily out of achievement. This is echoed by St. Catherine of Siena who preached: La Strada de Paradiso et ancessa Paradiso, (The road to heaven is also heaven). The “descent” of infinite Zurvan into finite time brings about the differentiation of time and space, and to the coveting of what one does not have. The inevitable gap between what one has and what one covets brings frustration, pain, and despair. It also brings the sublime creativity of a Dante, a Van Gogh, and a Dostoevsky. In the Far East there is a bias towards the inaction and timelessness of Nirvana, which is the opposite of infinite Zurvan. However, it seems that finite Zurvan within time favors the magician who draws mythogenes which structure joy and suffering from the horn of plenty, implanting them into chaotic, absurd, and agonizing history to create beauty, meaning, and grace. In Zurvanism, time is the prime mover. Zurvan’s twin offering creates, but does not activate, the world. Ohrmuzd has to ask his father ZurvanTime to set it in motion.109 As a comparison, the mytho-empirical prime mover in Judaism, as extant in the first chapter of Genesis, is the word of God, the Logos, apparently emanating from the spirit of God hovering over the primeval chaos.110 Firdausi’s Epic of Kings, which reflects the religious ethos of that period, metaphorizes the dualism of light and darkness as two horses running after each other but never reaching their goals, which keep eluding them “like the quarry before the hounds.”111 This is the lack, the impossibility of achieving one’s goals, that is inherent in the irreversibility of finite time. This brings to mind the Greek metamyths of Sisyphus and Tantalus which serve as the two vectors of our personality and social character theories. The inherent impossibility of achieving the participant longing of non-being and the separant passion to overcome the object are the two founts of energy for individuals and cultures. Infinite time is an impotent potentiality without passion and desire. “He can feel neither pleasure nor pain from the evil of Ahriman or the goodness of Ohrmuzd.”112 Indeed, these two finite time diachronicities were created in order to set the world in motion, something that the indifferent, timeless, Zurvan could not do. Finite time, with its worthy and vile epiphanies, makes for reproduction, excellence, old age, and death. Hence diachronicity installs the anthropic arrow of time as well as the infra-structure for evolution. This is echoed in Judaism that the evil spirit plays a part in procreation, growth, and death, very much like the primary role of Ahriman in the cycles of life and death, and the growth and decline

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in diachronic time. In Darwinian evolution, the functionality of death is in line with the primacy of Ahriman in the creation of the cyclic diachronicity vouchsafing the spirals of nature – life, death, and resurrection. Zurvanism has a strong Gnostic element in its negative value judgment of history. It also reflects the Kabbalist notion of a less-than-perfect God who needs to be mended by man. This may be the doubt in Zurvanism that creates evil. It is similar to the inherent blemish in Ibn Tabul’s concept of Lurianic Kabbala’s Divinity. The blemish causes the catastrophe of the breaking of the vessels: a disruption within Divinity which is cathartic purifies God, and allows man to become God’s partner through the process of mending and curing Him theurgically of His blemishes. Zurvanism also provides a prime mytho-empirical anchor for our conception of the mythogene, the all-important tool of creativity. Ohrmuzd and Ahriman do not touch each other; they are inherently incapable of interacting directly. Joint efforts within diachronicity are mediated through a synapsis, a rift, a nought which is the void. The indirect links between the two cosmic opposites is not resolved by a dialectic synthesis but through a maieutic complementarity. This is very much like our Mythogenic Structure which contains our experiences and quests, divided by a synapsis allowing the maieutic complementarities to grow when this Mythogenic Structure is embedded in any medium to generate creativity. In Zurvanism, the vicissitudes of diachronicity are evil, hence the efforts, longing and quests to revert back to the timelessness of synchronicity.113 This is effected by helping Zurvan of finite time to be cleansed of His guilt – the doubt which resulted in the birth of the evil Ahriman. Once the cleansing process is accomplished, the world and God will be redeemed, and everything will revert to timelessness without death but also without joy. It is a hopeless and meaningless universe ruled by predetermined fatalism with Hell but no paradise.114 The Zurvanites seem to have had an underlying reluctance to existing in a dreary, hopeless, and joyless eternity. This is reflected by Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov. He tells the savior that he would rather cope with the faith-generating trials of the here-and-now than the virtual illusions and pipe-dreams of the eternal bliss of the Second Coming. In Lurianic Kabbala, Haim Vital states that the ultimate mending of the blemished God will never be accomplished. A perfect God needs neither man nor creation. The inevitable vileness of man distances him from his task and makes the ultimate repairing of Divinity a never-ending mission. A lessthan-perfect God needs man as a partner in an ongoing dialogue necessary for the ontological viability of not only man and creation, but also of the

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Creator. On the other hand, a perfect God uses man as a slave, a flatterer, or a court jester. The historical origin of Zurvanism has its roots in Upanishadic India.115 As we have confined our mytho-empiric analysis to the ancient Near East we will not delve into the nature of the Indian roots of Zurvanism. The timelessness of Zurvan is linked to His abstraction and to His undifferentiated unity. Since this unity has no spatial attributes, it is rather like the singularity in modern cosmological theory. This singularity, the potentiality of everything inherent in the totality of unity and nothingness in the Black Hole of maximum gravity, explodes into the Big Bang. This has its mytho-empirical counterpart in Lurianic Kabbala. The tehiru is a Black Hole-like void devoid of space, time, and Divinity. God has withdrawn Himself from this void to facilitate creation. The reshimu (a Divine spark very much like a singularity is a residue of the Divine light that God withdrew) seems also to be the potentiality of everything The breaking of the vessels is a mytho-empirical cataclysmic event which catapulted Divinity into spatio-temporality. Zurvan, the unqualifiable absolute, is the macrocosm whereas man made in His image is the microcosm in which man mirrors Zurvan and man’s soul has a counterpart in Zurvan’s soul, the world soul inherent in the heavenly sphere.116 Zurvan’s doubt brought evil to the world and this vileness within God affects man and creatures. The twelve signs of the Zodiac are the cosmic embodiments of Ohrmuzd. The seven planets are the vile harbingers of Ahriman. These dialectics effect man and creation as the evil planets divert the good energies of the Zodiac and man is then afflicted by disease and sin.117 This is the mytho-empirical bond between macro- and microcosmos, between God and man. This link between the macro- and microcosmos expresses the transition from boundless timeless synchronic early orality to the strife and pain of later orality. The infant’s deprivational interaction with his surroundings through alternating experiences of pain, hope, and despair are mytho-empiricized by the oppressing energies directed at the nascent ego by the surrounding objects that encroach on his decreasing Lebensraum. These experiences shape his ego boundary. Zurvan offered sacrifices and asked for a son. Ohrmuzd was conceived, but so was the evil Ahriman, as a result of Zurvan’s doubts.118 Ohrmuzd was produced when Zurvan sacrificed without hesitation. This is reminiscent of the sacrifice of Isaac by an unquestioning Abraham. The Midrash says that Abraham stood firm in his upholding of God’s command even when chastised by the devil. The Weidergeist reprimanded Abraham; he reminded him that the birth of Isaac, after a hundred years,

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was miraculous and now he had lost his mind and was about to slaughter him. Abraham, however, chased the devil away and proceeded to build the alter on which Isaac would be sacrificed, firm in his belief of God. This absolute submission was meant to absolve the people of Israel of their sins.119 Fulfilling the thought on the adversary was a self prophecy. Thinking about evil creates evil.120 Thus the origin of good and evil are subjective, cognitive processes within God and man. This supports our belief that both good and evil are concepts developed by the human psyche as a correlate of the dialectics between the early and later oral phases of human development.121 The link to the formation at early orality of a spatio-temporal aquarium enabling the viability of human beings is what makes Zurvanism an apt mytho-empirical anchor for human development. The transition from infinite time to the finiteness of creation was accompanied by an epiphany of knowledge, which generated evil – not something that was willed by Ohrmuzd, the good metaphysical essence.122 This, of course, is linked to the Judeo-Christian concept of the Original Sin and the acquisition of selfknowledge. Mytho-empirically this is the ejection from Edenic synchronicity at early orality to an existential unity exposed to the deprivation and strife of diachronic later orality. The self-knowledge which is incidental to the formation of the ego boundary at later orality, and the violent confrontation of the nascent individual with his depriving surroundings, bring to mind the breaking of the vessels in the Lurianic Kabbala and the generation of evil also unwilled by God. Hence, both the doubting Zuruvan and Ohrmuzd, who could not prevent sinful knowledge, are less than perfect Gods, very much like the Divinity of Lurianic Kabbala. In the latter the blemished God made for a therapeutic relationship. Man strived to mend the injured Divinity and thereby gained a continuous purpose and meaning to his life. The mytho-empirical notion of evil embedding endlessness and eternity into the temporal relates to the constraining of the infant in early orality into the straitjacket of space and time and to the lonely separatum of later orality. The transition from early to later orality is effected by the deprivational interaction of the infant with hard surfaces, changing temperatures and erratic feelings. These deprivations culminate in scar tissue on the psyche which parallels the physical boundary of the body. Another similarity between Zurvanism and the Biblical account of the Original Sin is that infinite Zurvan’s doubt generated evil. In the Biblical account, the snake induced doubt in the heart of Eve about the absoluteness of God’s injunction against eating fruit from the tree of Knowledge. The doubt resulted in covetousness and passion for the

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forbidden tree.123 Most of the proscriptions of the Decalogue relate to covetousness initiated by the Original Sin. Az, the spirit of desire, prurience, and conspicuousness is, in Zurvanism and to a large extent in Zoroastrianism, the weapon of destruction and the means of procreation.124 Ohrmuzd looked for a way to procreate and, having no choice, created woman “[whose] mouth [is] close to the buttocks, and coition seems… as the sweetest food to the mouth.”125 Woman, whose procreation organ dwells quite close to her apertures of waste, was chosen by Ohrmuzd faute de mieux because conception needs the prurience of coition, which is a tool of the vile Ahriman. There is no alternative but to wallow in dirt, refuse, and obscene passion in order to procreate. In diachronicity, the finite Zurvan needs sin and prurience to survive. Of note is that in Pahlavi, the language of Zurvanism, “whore” means literally the “one who bears children,” or simply “woman.”126 Prurience is, therefore, a necessary evil – without sexual desire – which stemmed from the realm of vile Ahriman. Without this evil, no procreation would be possible and man the righteous would become extinct. The demon, Az, is important in our context. In the writings of Zatspram, the last Zurvanite High Priest Az is portrayed as the embodiment of motion, which is finite time. Az could also mean matter.127 Hence, the spatio-temporal finite Zurvan, the “aquarium” of creation, seems to have been catalyzed by Az the demon whore-woman. Ohrmuzd had to avail himself with Az, the tool of evil Ahriman, or let man perish. The tragic aspect of Zurvanism is that the righteous, less potent Ohrmuzd creates woman, the vessel of pollution, for the sake of procreation. Once this task is accomplished, the greedy, prurient woman leaves the “good guy” (Ohrmuzd) and moves closer to the “bad guy,” Ahriman. Ahiram seems better equipped to satisfy her desires. As woman is inherently vile and Ohrmuzd is dependent on her for procreation, good and evil are inseparably entwined in finite Zurvan. An important premise is that Ohrmuzd has to undergo an act of revelation to understand that he stems from the infinite Zurvan. Only then would he be ready for the acts of creation.128 This is our stance; before creativity, an experience of revelation stemming from metaphysical synchronicity induces us to construct a mythogene which is then used as a blueprint for the structure of the act of creation. Without the metaphysical perspective engendering the mediating mythogene, no creativity can be affected. The remarkable nature of Zurvanism, from the ethical point of view, is that both Ohrmuzd and Ahriman have chosen their moral preferences by free will. Ohrmuzd has chosen to be good and Ahriman has opted for evil.

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His sinister weapon is offered to him by Zurvan, “It is not that I cannot create anything good,” he boasts, “but that I will not.”129 This potent indeterminism is quite rare in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. In Greece, we have the universal coercive principle of ananké, which determines the fate of the Gods and man. Likewise, in ancient Egypt the principle of Ma’at regulates the cycles of nature, and thus the fate of all creation. In Mesopotamia, the Mes, the cosmic laws, are enforced on Divinities and life forms equally. A glaring exception is Judaism, where both God and man enjoy the freedom of will. Indeterminism and good and evil are within the “aquarium” of spatiotemporality. Zurvan of infinite times is morally neutral and the concept of free will is, therefore, meaningless. It is interesting to compare the ethical differentiation between infinite time, which is morally indifferent, and limited time, which endows man with the freedom of the will, in Zurvanism and Judaism. Judaism has a leading ethical rule which states, “Everything is foreseen but freedom is given.”130 The exegesis of this rule attributes to God a deterministic creation within spatio-temporality; man should experience his moral freedom. This has been ordained by God in his discourse with the first fratricide as follows, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”131 The curbing of one’s passions, denoted in Judaism as “the evil inclination,” is necessary, as without delimiting norms there can be no freedom. Without curbing boundaries there cannot be indeterministic ethics which is the essence of Judaic morality.

Notes 1

Tillich, P., “The Eternal Now,” in Feifel, H., ed., The Meaning of Death (New York: McGraw Hill, 1959). 2 Graves, R., The Greek Myths, vol. 1 (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1955),3839. 3 Husserl, E., Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (London: Collier-MacMillan, 1962). 4 Ibid., chap. 1. 5 Piaget, J., Le Structuralisme (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1987). 6 Lévi -Strauss, C., Le Cru et le Cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964), 9. 7 Genesis 3: 24. 8 For a review of this premise see Doron Porat, an unpublished MA Thesis on Metaphysics and Psychotherapy. 9 Shoham, S. G., The Promethean Bridge (Toronto: de Sitter, 2004).

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10 Barrow, J. D. and Tipler, F. J., The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 22. 11 Hawking, S. W., A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988); DeWitt, B. S. and Graham, N., The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973). 12 Heisenberg, W., Physics and Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 52. 13 Bohr, N., Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1932), 1. 14 Feyerabend, P. K., “Niels Bohr’s Interpretation of the Quantum Theory,” in Current Issues of the Philosophy of Science, ed. Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell (New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1961), 388. 15 Bohr, Atomic Theory, 82. 16 Ibid, 80. 17 Heisenberg,W., “Nobel Prize in Physics Award Address,” in The World of Physics, ed. Jefferson Hane Weaver (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 2:364. 18 Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy. 19 Heisenberg, “Nobel Prize Address,” 360. 20 Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 54. 21 Bohr, Atomic Theory, 412. 22 Bohr, Atomic Theory, 54. 23 Einstein, A., Podolsky, B. and Rosen, N., “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?” Physical Review 117 (1935). 777-80. 24 The design and description are from Pagels, H. R., “Bell’s Inequality” in The Cosmic Code (New York: Bantam, 1983), 137-44. 25 Gribbin, J., In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat (New York: Bantam, 1983), 229. 26 Ibid., 210. 27 Heisenberg, Physics and Philosopy, 143. 28 Barrow and Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 418. 29 Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Penguin, 1991), 250-1. 30 Ibid., 349. 31 Riorden, M., The Hunting of the Quark (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 78. 32 Genesis 1: 1-6, 14-18. 33 Idel, M., Kabbala: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 173. 34 Breasted, J. H., A History of the Ancient Egyptians (London: John Murray, 1924), 276. 35 Job 19: 26. 36 Husserl, E., Cartesian Meditations (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1972), 54-57. 37 Hawking, Brief History of Time, 46. 38 Ibid., 333-34. 39 Weinberg, S., The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 101-21.

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Glashow, S., “Towards a Unified Theory: Trends in a Tapestry,” Nobel Physics Award Address 1979; Hawking, History of Time, ch.10. 41 Lockwood, M., Mind, Brain and the Quantum (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 224. 42 Ibid., 216. 43 Penrose, R., “Quantum Gravity and State Vector Reduction,” in Quantum Concepts in Space Time, ed. Roger Penrose and C.J. Esham (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985), 129-46. 44 Penrose, R., “Minds, Machines and Mathematics,” in Mindwaves, ed. Colin Blakemore and Susan Greenfield (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 274. 45 Sperry, R. W., “Hemisphere Deconnection and Unity in Conscious Awareness” American Psychologist (1968), 723-33. 46 Buber, M., I and Thou, trans. Martin G. Smith (New York: Collier, 2000)), 6. 47 Genesis 1: 3. 48 Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1941), 245. 49 Genesis 1: 2. 50 Shoham, S. G., The Violence of Silence: The Impossibility of Dialogue (Middlesex, Transaction Books; Northwood: Science Reviews Ltd., 1983). 51 Petrie, A., Collins, W. and Solomon, P., “The Tolerance for Pain and for Sensory Deprivations,” American Journal of Psychology 123 (1960), 114; Petrie, A., Individuality in Pain and Suffering: The Reducer and Augmentor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 138, 140. 52 Eysenck, H., Biological Bases of Personality (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1967), 37. 53 Genesis Raba, 68. 54 Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953), 52. 55 Barrow and Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle. 56 Hawking, Brief History fo Time. 57 Barrow and Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 5. 58 Ibid., 21. 59 Ibid., 201, quoting Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper & Row, Colophon ed., 1975), 29. 60 Idel, Kabballa, 179-80. 61 Ibid., chap. 8. 62 Micha 6: 8. 63 Proverbs 16:5. 64 Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1950). 65 Exodus, 3: 4-7. 66 Kramer, S. N. and Wolkstein, D., Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth (New York: Harper & Row, 1983). 67 Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates: Being the Euthyphron, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Plato, trans. P. J. Church (London: Macmillan, 1892).

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68 Harrison, J. E., Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922), p.3. 69 Ibid., 7. 70 Ibid., 187. 71 Graves, Greek Myths, 105. 72 Anthes, R., in Mythologies of the Ancient World, ed. S. N. Kramer (New York: Doubleday, 1961), p.34-35. 73 Frankfort, H., Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1978). 74 Enuma Elish trans. S. Shifra (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996), p.20. 75 Ibid., 31. 76 “The Creation Epic” in The Ancient Near East, ed., J.B. Pritchard (Boston: Bantam, 1973), 35. 77 Ibid., 35. 78 Ibid., 36. 79 Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 301-2. 80 Exodus 32. 81 Exodus 32: 22-25. 82 Alon, G., Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple, the Mishna and the Talmud vol. 1 (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hemeuchad, 1957). 83 Neusner, J., A Life of Johanan Ben Zakkai (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 148. 84 Ibid., 36. 85 Ibid., 103. 86 Ibid., 191. 87 Named after its founder, Rabbi Itzhak Luria. 88 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 244-286. 89 Ibid. 90 Shoham, S. G., The Myth of Tantalus (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), 66 91 Shoham, S. G., Personality and Deviance (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000). 92 Ibid., 120 93 Zofnat Pa’aneach, ch.25, 3-4, cited in Ron Margolin, The Human Temple (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005), 217. 94 Ibid., 216. 95 Barrow and Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle. 96 Margolin, Human Temple, 228. 97 Buber, I and Thou, 86. 98 Ibid. 99 New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London: Hamlyn, 1990), 27. 100 Kramer and Wolkstein, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, 4-5. 101 Ibid., 5. 102 Ibid., 4. 103 Ibid. 104 Sprol, B. C., Primal Myths (London: Rider, 1980), 92. 105 Boyel, M., ed., Zoroastrianism (Manchester: Manchester U. Press, 1984), 96-7.

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106 Zaehner, R.C., The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975), 242-243. 107 Ibid., 212 et seq. 108 Ibid., 203. 109 Ibid., 208-209. 110 Genesis 1: 1. 111 Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight, 240. 112 Ibid., 236. 113 Ibid., 240. 114 Ibid., 242. 115 Ibid., 215. 116 Ibid., 237. 117 Ibid., 238. 118 Ibid., 207. 119 Genesis Raba. 120 Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight. 121 Shoham, Myth of Tantalus. 122 Cited in Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight, 220. 123 Genesis 3:6. 124 Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight, 223. 125 Ibid., 234. 126 Ibid., 233. 127 Ibid., 231. 128 Ibid., 221. 129 Ibid., 213. 130 Rabbi Akiva, Mishna Avot . 131 Genesis 4: 7.

CHAPTER THREE THE PALE SHADOWS OF ETERNITY:1 HOW DO RELATIVITY AND QUANTUM MECHANICS ACCOUNT FOR THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL AQUARIUM?

Outer space teaches us awe, humility and hope. —Carl Sagan, Contact. Nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution. —Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos. My colleagues are spherical bastards since they are bastards from every way you look at them. —Fritz Zwicky, A physicist, explaining the laws of symmetry.

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics presented by us in this volume points out that the generation of particles, and hence objects, is effected by the complementarity between a physical system and human consciousness. Hence, the understanding of the nature of space and time, or space-time, as Einstein preferred to call it, is within the realm of physics and sensual perception. However, since the latter is personalityanchored and culture-bound, we have to consult psychology and anthropology. We also claim that human consciousness is a reflection of the neo-platonic Nous, the world soul in all life-forms; we therefore also have to consult with philosophy and theology. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, writes that he should not avail himself of philosophy while constructing his physical theories. He then goes on to claim that physical theories should be aesthetic to be viable. However, aesthetics is a subjective and an integral part of philosophy.2 Recent insights into the nature of quantum mechanics show that the study of physics encompasses

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both the exact sciences and human behavior. The physicists should be content to see these attempts at theoretical integration because the enduring passion of physicists, from Einstein to the superstring theorists, has been to reach a unification of physical theories encompassing special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the four fundamental forces of nature: gravitational, electromagnetic, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. We think that this motivation to construct unified theories is based on the human tendency to merge and consolidate, which stems from the participant core personality vector, discussed in the Introduction. This, no doubt, spurs physicists to formulate the ultimate “Theory of Everything” (TOE). This, alas, seems to be well nigh impossible. The two theories of relativity, the special and the general, do not appear to be able to be coordinated with quantum mechanics. The theories of relativity belong to the classic world – diachronic, spatial, and local (obeying the laws of causality), bound by the constant of the velocity of light. The quantum world, on the other hand, is synchronic, is without definable space, and is non-local. Most problems in modern physics seem to stem from the theory and practice of bridging these two distinct worlds. In this chapter we will show that most difficulties encountered in the theoretical foundations of quantum mechanics are linked to this bonding between the diachronic classical world and the synchronic quantum realm. The uncertainty barrier does not allow the measuring of more than one of two related variables in the quantum world. The hazy Schrödinger wave function gives a mathematical stochastic probability of measuring a particle in the quantum world. The many worlds interpretation according to which each measurement, being a relationship between human consciousnesses as refracted from the world soul (Nous) and a physical system are very small indeed. There is also the popular superstring theory – strings of the Planck length which vibrate at resonant frequencies – that constitutes the essence of the quantum world which may coordinate relativity theory and quantum mechanics. We hold that a viable link between the basic duality of the classic and quantum worlds is the Mythogenic Structure described in the Introduction, which is comprised of a complementarity between diachronic experience and synchronic longing. We shall go on to describe how this bonding is effected in this chapter. Many of the ineffable guesses of modern physics come from the lack of cognisance of this basic duality inherent in our formative mythogene, of the complementarity between its diachronic and deterministic experiential component and the reflection of the indeterministic Nous forming the synchronic component of longing with the mythogene.

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Weinberg declares that the laws of symmetry underlie all the forces of nature.3 However, as he denies the existence of the spiritual indeterministic forces of nature, he has relied exclusively on the symmetries arising from mathematics and its underlying tautological equality between the two sides of an equation. We, on the other hand, believe that the synchronic component of longing in our mythogene, the reflection of the indeterministic Nous, is responsible for the breaking of the symmetries within the black hole leading to the creation of the world through resultant fluctuations after the Big Bang. Moreover, according to the string theory, vibrations initiated indeterministically in the quantum world that are transmitted by resonances to the diachronic aquarium, effect non-local communication between the synchronic quantum world and the diachronic aquarium. We shall deal with this later in this chapter. The laws of symmetry are found in physics and the natural sciences. A sphere remains unaltered irrespective of the side or angle from which we observe it. The speed of light is invariant no matter how we measure it. This is why the speed of light is a suitable boundary for the diachronic aquarium in which we exist. Einstein demonstrated that energy and matter are interchangeable; subsequently, some leading physicists described particles as pockets of energy. Symmetry reigns in the four fundamental forces of nature (gravitational, electromagnetic, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force). Gravity and acceleration are interchangeable. The weak nuclear force remains unchanged irrespective of whether it relates to electrons or to neutrons. The gluon fields constituting the strong nuclear force glue together the core nuclear particles. This occurs regardless of whether there are protons, neutrons, or if the quarks comprising them are “up,” or “down,” or whether their chrono-dynamics are “red,” “white” or “blue.” Similarly, the photon, which is the messenger particle of the electromagnetic force, is invariant and its nature is the same irrespective of the size and the energy of its field. However, we hold that time is symmetrical only in the quantic synchronic world and not in the diachronic aquarium where the arrow of time is asymmetrical, moving from low to high energy. Wigner marvels at the inexplicable efficiency of mathematics in explaining and predicting physical phenomena.4 We have a hunch about the role of mathematics in scientific discovery. The inherent symmetries of mathematical equations generate a eureka-like revelation which forms a Mythogenic Structure. The revelatory component of the Mythogenic Structure is synchronic and is complemented by a diachronic component of experience. This complementary composition of the Mythogenic Structure makes it suitable to link the synchronic quantum and the

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diachronic classic worlds. When the conscious reflection of the Nous within man decides indeterministically to measure a particle, create a work of art or artifact, the Mythogenic Structure “collapses” Schrödinger’s wave function – or Bohm’s implicate order – into an eigenstate of a particle, or a holographic image of a creation. This, in turn, is ingrained in matterenergy to form the actual work of art or artifact. We shall elaborate on this creative process in this chapter. We have already mentioned that the symmetry of mathematical equations gives an initial sense of aesthetics and therefore, of fitness. This is inherent in mytho-empiricism: the twisted, crooked and degenerate is seen as being unhealthy and bad, whereas symmetry and harmony appears to be beautiful and good. The developmental and socio-biological rationale of evolution is that something symmetrical, aesthetic and beautiful will produce healthy and handsome offspring whereas ugliness, asymmetry, and twisted models make crooked, degenerate and repulsive specimens and are thus discarded. Symmetry, aesthetics, and relationships between the perceiving human consciousness and the perceived physical systems lead us to the nature of physical ontology or reality. Newton gave us the assurance that space and time are solid and immutable. Although Leibniz, Newton’s contemporary, argued to the contrary. He claimed that the position and velocity of objects can only be determined in their relationship to other objects.5 He was not really taken seriously and Newton’s solid space and absolute time continued to sustain man’s comfort and security until Mach and Einstein shattered the solidity of space and the ontological reality of time. Mach held that an object has no reality for itself and by itself; the reality is only in relationship to other objects. Einstein went further. His theory of special relativity shows that for an observer within the diachronic aquarium a watch rushing towards the speed of light, the boundary of our spatiotemporal aquarium, would slow down and its mass would contract. When it reaches the speed of light, it would stop and disappear altogether. The Copenhagenists and their leader, Niels Bohr, went a step further and stated that ontological reality is not an entity but an association between human consciousness and energy-matter. To be more specific, the relationship Bohr envisaged was not a synthesis but a complementarity.6 Hence, human consciousness and energy matter were not immersed in each other but interacted in a maieutic indirect manner: consciousness entered the quantic world but “collapsed” the stochastic wave function, or the implicate order, and induced them indirectly to jump over to the classical world and appear as a particle in the explicate order. We claim that this bonding is effected by our Mythogenic Structure which combines synchronic and diachronic

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components. Thus, the two worlds – the synchronic quantic and the diachronic classic – may be mediated by the Mythogenic Structure. A direct epistemic bonding between them is impossible because of the uncertainty barrier. The diachronic aquarium, bounded by the speed of light, may be perceived by our senses whereas the synchronic quantic world may not be. The synchronic world is stochastically represented by Schrödinger’s wave function or Bohm’s implicate order, and may be implied mathematically and interpolated indirectly. Mytho-empirically, this is the indirect maieutic awareness of God by the people of Israel in Exodus and the circuitous Divine light in the Lurianic Kabbala that reaches humans without destroying them. We designate five ontological dimensions in contradistinction to Einstein’s four and the ten of the string physicists. These ontological dimensions are the three spatial and two temporal dimensions (the classic diachronicity and the quantic synchronicity). Mytho-empirically, the synchronic, paradisical Holy world and the diachronic world of strife is divided by the cherubim.7 There are at least two of them with a flaming sword which turned every way.8 The synapses between the synchronic and diachronic worlds seem to be impassable as they are fortified by the speed of light on the side of the classic aquarium of history and by Heisenberg’s uncertainty barrier on the realm of the quantum world. Efforts of the physicists to unify the four fundamental forces of nature, a hope cherished by Einstein, encountered new problems. The electromagnetic and the weak nuclear forces were the first to be unified. However, when the strong nuclear force was sought to be unified with the electroweak one (the combined electromagnetic and weak nuclear force), it appeared that there was no symmetry between the two.9 The reason for this was that the strong nuclear force had a much greater energy than the electroweak force. Therefore, other heavy energy conveying particles would have to be found to supplement the bonding energies of W&Z (the linking particles of the weak nuclear force), the photons (the bonding particles of the electromagnetic field), and the gluons (the gluing particles of the strong nuclear force). These heavy Higgs particles are hypothetical; they have not been detected empirically. Finally, the superstring theory developed in the late 1960s includes all four forces, gravity included, in the unified theory. However, apart from a mathematical description there is no way, as yet, to provide this unified theory with an empirical anchor.10 The uncertainty barrier prevents any epistemic knowledge of the synchronic quantum world. We can relate to it only by logical inference or mathematical constructs. This is the nature of Schrödinger’s wave function, as well as Bohm’s implicate order. As there is an injunction on

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the epistemic perception of the Holy, the mytho-empirical proscription of seeing God directly,11 and the Kabbalist evasion of the Divine direct light,12 the synchronic realm of timeless and spaceless nothingness is unknowable and therefore sacred. The quantic world is outside the realm of our diachronic aquarium; it is the domain of the “wholly other,”13 the non-local epistemically unknowable. This was, surprisingly enough, the stance of Newton who declared that emptiness, the void – our quantic world – is “filled by a spiritual substance.”14 The mind-boggling notion of a “superposition of states,” the quantic potential of physical states, is expressed stochastically by mathematical equations as they are tangible only through the observation of the human psyche. Therefore, the quantic realm is not physical, but probabilistic and abstract; it is not material but metaphysical – beyond the tangible. It is outside the domain of human experience and is therefore, in the realm of belief. The mythogene, comprising historic experience and longing for the “other” world of non-tangible probabilities, bridges the domains of the classic diachronic aquarium and the quantic synchronic world. We claim that the longing of the human mind to connect with the unknowable quantum world is, in itself, able to structure a bonding mythogene. This may be linked to Aristotle’s concept of ȠȡİȤȚs, orexis, which is the quest of the form to bind with matter. Indeed, it is the indeterministic choice of the operator of the measurement device to observe a particle or a wave. It is the uniting mythogene, which determines the end result. This longing to extricate oneself from the fetters of history and expose oneself to the momentary now, Heidegger’s Augenblick, is mytho-empiricized by Moses’ exposure to the Burning Bush in synchronicity, while he himself was in diachronicity. Also, God’s word, the Logos, is clearly a mythoempirical projection of the Divine part of the mythogene, and was instrumental in bringing about the first illumination: “And God said let there be light.”15 Light with its immutable velocity was the first constant of nature. It was created to encompass the whole of creation. All the efforts to unify the forces of nature – from Einstein to the Grand Unification Theories (GUT) and through to the superstrings – is a participant longing to squeeze the world into one theoretical umbrella. However, it does not seem to work. All we have is a classic diachronic and a quantic synchronic dualism which is linked, or rather complemented, by a Mythogenic Structure. The two formidable cherubim, that of the uncertainty principle and that of the speed of light, separating the historic aquarium of toil and strife and Edenic synchronicity may be linked by the mythogenes, either through maieutic complementarity or a non-local resonance. The mythogenes are like software programs – the structures or,

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blueprints – embedded in all creations. They are self-regulating and survive by adjusting to changing spiritual and material needs and conditions. The mythogenes are cumulated in the mythologies of our social characters. Some evolute in the synchronic Noah’s Ark of the implicate order. When they are required, they are resurrected in their new form and engender creations from eigenstates of particles to structures such as the Eiffel tower, da Capo ad infinitum. The Mythogenic Structure is also perfectly symmetrical with its interchangeable duality of experience and longing. This makes it aesthetically viable and, according to Stephan Weinberg, theoretically sound.16 After the hypotheses of Weinberg and Einstein, we speak of a spatiotemporal continuum and not of separate space and time. The two poles of the continuum may be differentiated by time linked to movement, velocity, and speed, and space related to the curving power of gravity as described by Riemannian geometry. In our diachronic aquarium time was conceived by Einstein in 1949 as a spatial curve of points in three dimensional space, whereas space was temporalized as a succession of stills. This spatiotemporality and locality came to characterize our diachronic aquarium. The quantum world was designated by synchronicity, ineffable spatial probability, and non-locality. We should not lose sight of the fact that we exist, create, think, and dream in our classic spatio-temporal aquarium encompassed by the speed of light. Our knowledge of the quantum world is not only convoluted and inchoate because of the uncertainty barrier, but it is also abstract and mathematically construed. Many scholars, including physicists, treat Schrödinger’s stochastic wave function as a description of quantum reality. It is nothing of the sort. Schrödinger’s ȥ is just a very ingenious mathematical formula and does not represent anything tangible in the quantum world. Max Born tried to argue for the reality of the probabilistic wave function in the quantum world. But this is seemingly untenable. To be real, the super-position of states and the stochastic wave function has to “collapse” into an eigenstate of a particle, and then it would cease to be Schrödinger’s wave function. We may then end up with Born’s stance in a vicious circle that cannot be solved. However, quantum reality may well be related to a Higgs ocean permeating the quantum and classic worlds. It may have a zero energy value or a non-zero value. However, a particle without mass, like a photon traveling with the speed of light, would rush unhindered by the Higgs ocean. A heavier particle, like a quark, would generate a lot of resistance when accelerating through the Higgs ocean. Moreover, the whole notion of mass, and hence of space and movement, i.e. time, or the combined essence of space-time, is generated through the

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amount and nature of the resistance to acceleration of the various particles while traveling in the Higgs ocean.17 The Higgs ocean will prove to be helpful in our later discussion of the modes of communication between the classic and quantum worlds. The first of the four forces of nature relevant to our deliberations is gravity. This was the first force to break away from the primordial perfect symmetry of the uniform flow of energy after the Big Bang. For us, the gravitational force was instrumental in curving space-time for the contours of our diachronic aquarium. The second quantum force to disentangle itself from the primordial perfect symmetry was the strong nuclear force. This force bound the free floating quarks into lumps of matter. The third was radiation, the weak nuclear force that caused particles to decay and form other hadrons and help generate life. The last force to break the perfect symmetry was electromagnetism, which supplied, amongst others, the speed of light constituting the ontological constant of our spatiotemporal aquarium.18 No physicist would want to, or would dare, to relate the universal spirit, the Nous, to the act of creation. Thus we have availed ourselves of the mytho-empirical emanation of God’s spirit into the temporal world as envisaged by the Lurianic Kabbala. This emanation, like the neo-Platonic tradition, starts with the atzilut, which is the initial radiation of the Divine essence from the Godhead. The second is beriah, the formation of God’s throne and the foremost angels. The third is yezirah, the creation of the domain of the rest of God’s angels. The last is Asiyyah, the spiritual component permeating the spatio-temporality of the senses.19 Thus, God is reflected in every life-form in our diachronic aquarium. The universe is initiated by a singularity which at timelessness (time zero) has infinite matter density, infinite curvature, and infinite temperature.20 It is formed by a “big crunch” when the universe has completed its life cycle and collapses by its own dense gravity into a black hole into which everything is sucked, even light. This explains its darkness.21 The singularity is the potential of everything, including spacetime. But because of Penrose’s concept of the principle of “cosmic censorship,” it cannot be observed in the lightless black hole. Thus “Nature abhors a naked singularity.”22 The singularity is not in space-time but is in the synchronic implicate order. It is the source of space-time and the diachronic universe aquarium surrounded by the boundary of the velocity of light. Space-time starts after the singularity exploded into the Big Bang.23 Both time and space collapse into nothingness in the black hole.24 The black hole, surrounded by the Event Horizon – which is the boundary of

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the hole – was believed to be impassable and impermeable; not so anymore. There are apparently contact points between the black hole and the diachronic world. Also, the black hole obeys the second law of thermodynamics. According to this law, entropy allows energy to seep from it. The larger the black hole and the higher its density, the greater its entropy.25 The Big Bang explodes the black hole with the singularity at its centre. Then the universe starts to expand and evolve into a diachronic aquarium containing all the objects and life forms until it reaches the limits of its expansion. Chandrasekhar has calculated the critical mass, when the universe reaches the upper limit of its density.26 Subsequently, it shrinks again by the force of gravity and finally collapses back into a black hole and singularity, da capo ad infinitum.27 The “contraction,” the tzimtzum, in Lurianic Kabbala is the mythoempirical counterpart to the big crunch. The singularity in the black hole surrounded by the Event Horizon is anchored by the mytho-empirical tehiru and reshimu. In Lurianic Kabbala, the tehiru is the empty space formed after God contracted himself and the reshimu is the mythoempirical equivalent of the singularity. Lurianic Kabbala holds that the central point of the tehiru, the mytho-empirical equivalent to the singularity in the midst of the black hole, is “like air which cannot be perceived.”28 This is much like Penrose’s cosmic censorship, which does not allow a naked singularity to be perceived and therefore, the singularity is not perceived within the black hole.29 This is very much like a virtual mathematical construct. We have observed that the Big Bang is mytho-empirically related to the Kabbalist breaking of the vessels and the tikkun – the creative linking of the synchronic quantum world and the diachronic aquarium. This reflects our mytho-empirical method: in quantum mechanics, the universal consciousness (through man) creates matter and in Kabbala, man mends God and so the world and then himself. God – our Authentic Domain – is related to the creation of matter and life forms by feedback mythogenes to the Homo faber (man, the maker-creator). This is the fundamental link between God, man, and creation. The existence of space-time is possible only within the diachronic aquarium with a boundary of the velocity of light. Only in the aquarium can there be a relationship between energy, objects, and life-forms. Ontology is an interaction which cannot occur in the nothingness of the black hole, a synchronicity devoid of space-time, and therefore, of being and life. Mytho-empirically we have striking images in Jewish mysticism related to quantum mechanics which would have been mind boggling, or

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would have been attributed to black magic, had they not been supported by our methodology elucidated in the previous chapters of this volume. To recapitulate: we claim that the universal spirit reflected in human beings and other life forms interacts with energy-matter to form mythogenes. It is these mythogenes which are used in creation – be it of the world, the world’s creatures, or a work of art. When viable, these mythogenes are accumulated in the mythologies of social characters and then in the universal synchronic Noah’s Ark, which is the Authentic Domain of all surviving mythogenes. These mythogenes wait to be reintegrated into history when creators draw them back into space-time by their authentic revelations and reintegrate them into works of art and artifacts da capo. The singularity may be linked mytho-empirically to the reshimu, the Divine sparks embedded in the primeval space of the tehiru, the Divine space created after the tzimtzum, God’s contraction of himself into himself, to allow the creation of the world.30 These are the mytho-empirical equivalents to the singularity and the black hole created by the Big Bang. The mytho-empirical counterpart to the Big Bang is the breaking of the vessels, the cosmic catastrophe, seen by the Lurianic Kabbala as the incident that led to the creation of the world.31

Thrownness The mythical anchor for the thrownness of birth and the creation of the world is the Lurianic Kabbala doctrine of the breaking of the vessels. This cosmic catastrophe brought about the reification of existence, the straying of Divine particles into the mires of spatio-temporality,32 and the introduction of evil into the world. The analogy here is that the sparks of Divinity are strewn in the shells of the broken vessels, which are denoted by Lurianic Kabbala as kellipot signifying the evil, just as the soul, which is a particle of Divinity, is embedded in the stultifying and delimiting body through the thrownness of birth. The fiercely participant and mystical Kabbala regards birth and spatio-temporality as a catastrophic flaw in creation. Consequently, man’s duty is to effect a tikkun, a mending of this cosmic catastrophe, by returning the dispersed sparks of Divinity to their origin, which in this context could be taken as the participant quest of each seperatum to revert to its perfect origin. Of special importance is the fact that the mythological Kabbalist totality in which one longs to partake is the feminine Schechina. This free-floating participant longing for the annihilation of the separate self and the totality of nonbeing may express

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itself, inter alia, by the self-destructive romantic agony which is dealt with in this chapter. In the beginning was the boundless Ein-Sof. This infinity, which reigned supreme before creation, is the basic tenet of the Judaic God, as conceived by the hymn of the morning prayers: “The master of the world who reigned before any creature was formed.” Indeed, man’s inability to grasp infinity may be conceived as our metaphysical programming against the knowledge of God, whose essence is infinity. This could be one layer of the meaning of the myth in Genesis proscribing eating from the tree of knowledge. The Kabbalist infinity is very much like the limitless, attributeless God of Plotinus and other neo-Platonists.33 It is above and beyond the ten sefirot, which are the progressive stages of creation from the “depths of nothingness” to the diverse separata of spatio-temporality.34 This continuum from the participant infinity of nonbeing to the separant spatio-temporality of creation has three dynamic phases in Lurianic Kabbala: the boundless light of infinity (olam ha’atzilut) embeds itself into the first phase of condensation (akudim).35 The second phase of the creation of the cosmic vessels (nekudim), which is closely linked to the creation of the human limbs, culminated in the catastrophe of the breaking of the vessels, which is interpreted as the mythical projection of birth. This catastrophe has its equivalent in the Zohar, in the Death of the Kings, because they died to Divinity and were thrown into the profane, Godless world.36 The analogy with birth here is evident: the expulsion of the Divine sparks embedded in dirt and profanity brings to fore the fallen souls thrown into this world amidst the blood and pollution oozing out of the woman’s womb at birth. This is typical of the Gnostic and Lurianic Kabbalist conception of the profanity of spatio-temporality, in contrast to the purity and boundless radiance of the pre-created nonbeing of infinity. Consequentially, the creation of spatio-temporality, which was incidental to the breaking of the vessels, calls for the third mending phase (olam hatikun: berundim), in which man strives to return the particles of Divinity scattered by the cosmic catastrophe to their Divine origin, thereby effecting a salvation of the world, man, and God. When all creation and man return to their Divine origin, not only are objects, flora, fauna, and man saved, but God is mended because he regained his original wholeness. Although the Kabbala, following some Gnostic premises, constructs a graded continuum between the boundless infinity of the Ein-Sof and the delimiting fragmentation of spatio-temporality, it actually expounded a dualism: the participant, pure nothingness of the Divine world of atzilut on the one hand, and the separant, reified, strife-laden world of creation on

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the other. Moreover, the more concrete and visible the vessels of creation are, the more they are the embodiment of vileness and the less imbued they are with Divine grace.37 Both Lurianic Kabbala and the Zohar equate matter and corporeality with evil,38 and thus share with Gnosis, neoPlatonism, and existentialism, the view of temporal existence as being a thrown exile from the bliss of nonbeing. It is interesting to note that the Kabbala calls the lower worlds of concrete existence, “the worlds of Separation.”39 This it seems provides a semantic vindication for the use of the word “separant” to describe one of the core vectors of the theory. This striking similarity of terms was brought to the attention of the author by a Jerusalem Kabbalist who came across the author’s work describing the dialectics between the separant and participant core vectors of the human personality and their parallels in Kabbalist cosmology. The God of Lurianic Kabbala, at least according to Hayim Vital, is a less-than-perfect God: the catastrophe of the breaking of the vessels was out of His control and He was unable to prevent it.40 Moreover, he needs the help of man to “mend” this catastrophe; thus man and God become partners in the business of each other’s salvation. This theologically absurd definition of Divinity becomes viable if one regards the breaking of the vessels as a projection of the separant vicissitude of human birth and the subsequent quest of the man-God to annul his thrownness and revert to the wholeness of nonbeing. The Gnostic Marcion attributes spatiotemporality to a miserable, erratic “God of Creation,” the Demiourgos, as a solution to the paradox of an imperfect God showing pettiness and weakness. This Demiourgos is contrasted with the pure, “unknown,” “unperceivable,” and perfect “alien” God.41 In the more recent Chenoboskian discoveries of Gnostic texts, the theme of the erring Sophia and her son, the Demiourgos, is fully developed. This guilty Sophia suffers as her fault resulted in the creation of boundless pain, darkness, and misery.42 This could mean that the “erring,” birth-giving Sophia-mother is responsible for the trials of being thrown into this world, whereas the good Sophiamother, like the Kabbalist Schechina, symbolizes the participant perfection of nonbeing with whom exiled man longs to reunite. A dramatic illustration of the dialectics between the good and bad (erring) mother and the good and bad son is presented by the Gnostic texts of the Hypostasis of the Archons: the erring Sophia tried but failed to create a heavenly creation. Her efforts resulted in the creation of base spatio-temporal matter in which a monstrous male/female man-god named Ialdabaóth boasted, “I am God and there is no other God but I.” This could be interpreted as the mythical hubris of the separant forces of creation reveling in their illusive omnipotence within the material world. Sophia then reprimanded Ialdabaóth

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and proved to him, by introducing Divine light into matter, that the wholeness of non-corporeality existed before him. Ialdabaóth, however, was not convinced and still claimed that he was the God of the universe. Sophia’s daughter, Zoé, untainted by her mother’s error, drove Ialdabaóth to the hell of Tartarus. Sabaóth, Ialdabaóth’s repentant son, was then installed in the seventh heaven, just below the veil separating the lower world from the Divine light.43 This again could be interpreted as the mythical dynamic depicting the separant birth of the base Ialdabaóth as the result of Sophia’s cosmic error, which has much in common with the Kabbalist catastrophe of the breaking of the vessels that effected the vile creation. The participant counterpart is portrayed by the non-erring Zoé, the blameless daughter of light, who revealed to Sabaóth the lights of wholeness and nonmaterial perfection to which he can long while lodged just below the veil separating him from the perfect non-corporeal lightmother. The dichotomy of this mythological account, relevant to our premise, can be presented as follows: The separant mother dyad: erring Sophia-Ialdabaóth judged to be vile by the Gnostics, contrasted with the participant longing for perfection of Zoé, the daughter of light, and of Sabaóth, the repentant son who has “seen the light.” The gist of the Kabbalist44 and Gnostic myths is that the visible world is vile, deceptive, and delimiting, the work of a less-than-perfect and lying Demiourgos. Irenaeus says: When the Demiurge further wanted to imitate the boundless, eternal, infinite and timeless nature of the upper Ogdoad (the original eight Aeons in the Pleroma), but could not express their immutable eternity, being a fruit of defect, he embodied their eternity in times, epochs and great numbers of years, under the delusion that by the quantity of times he could represent their infinity. Thus truth escaped him and he followed the lie. Therefore his work shall pass away when the times are fulfilled.45

However, the particles of Divinity that have been scattered by the catastrophic breaking of the vessels (the Kabbalist reshimu) are embedded in each separatum of spatio-temporality. The vile shells (Kellipot) of the body encase and circumscribe these Divine sparks that are, so to speak, splinters from the boundless infinity of pre-being. Ibn Tabul describes this containment of the sacred particles of light by the temporal bodies, “And the reshimu of light remained there with the powers of stern judgment (the symbol of temporal evil in Lurianic Kabbala)… But the powers of measurement (regulation) went down and selected each separate particle of light and stern judgment (vileness) formed a container-like, a body for the soul and embedded each particle in a container.”46 In mythical terms,

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the particles of light represent souls that are splinters of Divinity embedded in profane temporal bodies. But in this context, this represents the projection of the longing of the participant core vector of man to return to the boundlessness of nonbeing and thereby be liberated from the confines of the temporal body. There are some arguments among the students of Lurianic Kabbala as to whether the transition from good to evil is through a Neo-platonic continuum or a Gnostic dualism.47 There is no doubt, however, that the Kabbala views this world as dominated by the forces of evil and sees birth as the expulsion of some particles of Divine light into the profane world of existence. This is conceived by the Zohar as the death of the seven mythical kings whose severance from the wholeness of Divinity (olam ha’atzilut) was tantamount to death. “The death of these seven kings,” explains the Kabbala, “was because the branches by themselves were severed without the roots. These branches were unable, therefore, to receive (Divine) light and consequentially died.”48 Similarly, the Gnostics considered the creation of man as a devilish design and the human body as a satanic substance.49 The soul of fallen man does not belong in this world. It is alien because it belongs to the extraterrestrial Divinity.50 It should be noted that the participant longing to reunite with the perfect Divinity is much more pronounced in the Kabbalist and Gnostic myths than the separant thrownness-into-this-world. The ontological expulsion into this world is actually experienced and mythologically projected as a fact, but the participant craving to escape the deprivational interaction with the objects and other people is even more strongly projected onto participant myths of union with boundless Grace, when the trials of temporal existence are harsher. Lurianic Kabbala and some Gnostic teachings envisage birth as a catastrophe and project it onto transcendence as a cosmic disaster. Apart therefore, from constituting a mytho-empirical anchor for the participant conception of birth as a catastrophic “thrownness” into exile, the two disciplines provide suitable instances of creeds that transcend the transition from blissful suspension in the womb to the deprivational interaction outside it. These creeds not only regard embodied life outside the womb as profane, vile, and undesirable, but they also seek ways and means of liberation from its existential exile. A pertinent, if macabre, expression of this belief is found in a letter written to a friend by the German philosopher Lessing, soon after the death of his newly-born son: My happiness was short lived. How sorry I was to lose him. This son of mine who expressed such great wisdom, such great wisdom! Please do not think that the few hours of my parenthood were enough to implant in me

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the usual stupidity of fathers! I know exactly what I am saying. Wasn’t it wise on his part that they had to drag him into the world with metal forceps? That he was quick to recognize the squalor around him? Wasn’t it wise on his part to take the first opportunity to get out of here?51

The Kabbala postulates that the tikkun, the mending of the broken vessels which gave birth to the exile of spatio-temporality, has the power of salvation which may save man from his thrownness into the temporal world. Gnosis regards the created world as a prison in which the convicts seek to escape the oppressive yoke of the vigilant archons and rejoin the eternal boundless light outside the prison walls. Graham Greene, the expert chronicler of the damned and the failed, seems to have been very tired of his Tantalic life-long quest for revealing insights into the human predicament. He confided in an interview that he is waiting for a far greater trophy than the Nobel Prize - death. Lurianic Kabbala, in an essentially Neo-Platonic way, understands the creation of the world and the incarnation of souls into profane bodies within it, as an emanationist process of transition from the boundless light of the Torah D'atzilut to the coagulated matter of the created world (Torah Debriah). However, the catastrophic breaking of the vessels is a violent disruption of the cosmic containers of the Divine light. As a result of this disruption, the sparks of Divinity together with the vile shells of the broken vessels were strewn over the world. This is referred to as “the death of the kings” in the Zohar. This is not a literal death but rather the descent from upper to lower echelons. The Kabbala expressly compares the breaking of the vessels and the subsequent scattering of the broken pieces, to birth, in which slimy waste is expelled from the womb along with the neonate.52 Moreover, the coagulation of layer upon layer of a cocoon-like selfencasement, and delimitation of Divinity within the cosmic vessels prior to their birth-like rupture, may well be taken as a mytho-empirical projection of pregnancy.53 Indeed, Lurianic Kabbala strikingly demonstrates our basic argument that human developmental dynamics are represented by myths and are reflected in religious creeds. The extreme participant nature of the Kabbala is also apparent in its conception of human birth as the source of vileness, profanity and suffering in spatio-temporal creation. Various doctrines of the Kabbala interpret the nature of emanation differently – from the boundlessness of infinity (Ein-Sof), through the ten cycles of the sefirot, to the world of creation. Some see it in a truly NeoPlatonic manner – as a process of the dimming of the Divine light so that it eventually turns into profane matter. The dynamic is one of deprivation in which the source of boundless light fades by privatio boni, a process of the

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diminishing of goodness, into embodied vileness. The boundlessness of Ein-Sof is, according to this position, outside the ten sefirot and beyond the dynamics of incarnation and materialization. According to other interpretations, the whole process of creation – from infinity to spatiotemporality through the ten sefirot – is within the Godhead.54 The image here is of God clothing himself in ten garments (the ten sefirot). These garments are an integral part of Divinity “like the garment of the grasshopper whose clothing is … part of itself.”55 In Lurianic Kabbala, however, the transition from boundless ethereality to temporal reality is rather Gnostic in its dualism. The breaking of the vessels, which happened in the second world of Divine emanation (nekudim) actually expelled evil into the world. The debris of the broken vessels, together with the soulful sparks of Divinity formed evil.56 The disaster of birth transforms the boundless bliss in utero to the trials of temporal existence. We have already mentioned the Lurianic Kabbala’s conception of this catastrophe as a mytho-empirical representation of human birth. Indeed, this cosmic catastrophe is continuous because births are recurring events.57 The breaking of the vessels happened without the consent or knowledge of the Godhead, just as human birth is not dependent on the consent or the knowledge of the born creature. This is the Kabbalist counterpart to the existentialist Geworfenheit zum Tod.58 Indeed, Ibn Tabul states that the root of evil lies in the breaking of the vessels, and, as this cosmic mishap is related by the Kabbala to creation and birth, human existence is initiated by an unfortunate accident. This negative conception of birth is shared by Gnosis. However the Gnostic solution is more radical: if creation and birth are ordained and programmed by the evil Demiourgos, the logical counterattack advocated by some of the Gnostics is an organized avoidance of procreation. If creation and birth are the design of the vile Demiourgos, the (good) God-Father should have no part in it. Hence, according to the Gnostic Gospel of Truth, God the Father is uncreated and resides in the boundless pleroma.59 In similar vein, the three godly rungs of keter, hochma, and bina were not subject to the catastrophe of the broken vessels, and, according to Vital, the rung of keter had never been emanated from the Godhead.60 In our framework, birth and creation are viewed from the participant point of view, giving a positive value to nonbeing. Hence the good Godhead cannot be responsible for the vile (separant) creation, which must have occurred outside his authority and control. Moreover, he himself was injured by this catastrophe as particles of himself were chipped off his boundlessness and imprisoned by the Demiourgos in profane bodies within the confines of time and space. Yet these Divine

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particles – the souls embedded in the creatures – are entrusted with the most arduous task of all. They have to fight the Demiourgos and “mend” the Godhead. This crucial, yet desperate function of man (and creatures) is extant in Gnosis, Kabbala and existentialism. The models followed by all three are similar: the imprisoned soul in Gnosis rebels against the Demiourgos guided by the maieutic enlightenment of the messenger from the “alien” Ogdoad. In the Kabbala, man labors within the broken and fallen rungs of the here-and-now to mend blemished infinity while the Camusean Sisyphus labors incessantly to imbue meaning and value through his rebellious creativity to his stone burden, a hostile creation and a silent God. The dynamics within the Trinity of the Godhead, the Demiourgos, and man is as follows: man was thrown into the world for reasons unknown to him and is confronted by a Demiourgos who is both hostile and mindless. This Demiourgos, who manipulates the separant component of creation, is mythologized as the Sisyphean stone and is no longer controllable by the Godhead. Man starts as a stranded particle encased in a failing body subject to the mindless yet continuous fluctuations of separant growth and participant entropy. He does not know the purpose of his sojourn in this world, as this knowledge may harm his capacities as a mending agent. However, once man realizes his function, that of mending the blemished God, he becomes a son of God and ultimately an integral part of the Godhead. This rise in stature is effected by man’s knowledge and Gnostic enlightenment of his central function in the deliverance of himself and the Godhead from the coercion of the Demiourgos. In the Kabbala, man, once he recognizes his role as “mender” is raised to a supreme status where even the Godhead in infinity becomes his “shadow.” In existentialist thought, once a Camusean Sisyphus recognizes that the only way to make his existence viable and meaningful is to find a creative modus vivendi with his stone, does he becomes master of his destiny. A silent, blemished God can no longer harm him, and he is transformed from a Demigod into God. This could well be the mytho-empirical basis of the Trinitarian concept of transcendence; the son of man containing a part of God, then becoming a son of God, and, with the knowledge (Gnosis) of his universal role, becoming God integrated into the Trinity. It should be stressed, however, that although each particle of Divinity embedded in each life form and object stems from one source, and each separate consciousness is linked to a unitary essence, the life forms and objects are epistemically disconnected and this makes them feel estranged from one another. Most of the time they cannot communicate. They are locked in a Buberian I-It relationship and, except for the rare moments of

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graceful dialogue, the “other” is the hell of everybody else. The “other” is usually part of the coercive Demiourgos. The Demiourgos, the universal other, is the hell of God. In this sense too, man is created in God’s image so that he is better suited to mend God and find solutions for His problems. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip regards the creation of the world and man in it as a failure – a cosmic flop by a failing God.61 Characteristically, babies are born deaf and blind into the exile of a hostile and depriving world dominated by the Demiourgos.62 In the Kabbala, birth, through the breaking of the vessels, creates exile. The sacred particle is encased in the prison of flesh and temporal sequences. The creation of man is violent and uprooting and is accompanied by the pain of the mother. The natural complement to the curse on women to bear children in pain is the catastrophe registered by the neonate. The breaking of the vessels is an imagery of the “breaking” of the womb, expelling the neonate covered in blood and torn tissue.63 The existential thrownness of the neonate into the exile of history is described aptly by Wilhelm Reich, the eccentric rebel, who said: When a child is born, it comes out of a warm uterus, 37 degrees centigrade, into about 18 or 20 degrees centigrade. That’s bad enough. The shock of birth…is bad enough. But it could survive that if the following didn’t happen: As it comes out, it is picked up by the legs and slapped on the buttocks. The first greeting is a slap. The next greeting: Take it away from the mother. Right? Take it away from the mother. I want you to listen here. It will sound incredible in a hundred years. Take it away from the mother. The mother must not touch or see the baby. The baby has no body contact after having had nine months of body contact at a very high temperature – what we call the “organic body energy contact,” the field action between them, the warmth and the heat. They can’t talk to you, they just cry. What they do is shrink. They contract, get away into the inside, away from that ugly world. I express it very crudely, but you understand what I mean. Now, that’s the greeting: Taking it away from the mother. Mother mustn’t see it. Twenty-four or forty-eight hours, eat noting. Right? And then comes the worst: this poor child, poor infant, tries always to stretch out and to find some warmth, something to hold on to. It goes to the mother, puts its lips to the mother’s nipple. And what happens? The nipple is cold, or doesn’t erect, or the milk doesn’t come, or the milk is bad. And that is quite general. That’s average. So what does that infant do? How does it respond to that? How does it have to respond to that biogenetically? It can’t come to you and tell you “Oh, listen, I’m suffering so much, so much.” It doesn’t say “no” in words, you understand, but that is the emotional situation. And we orgonomists know it. We get it out of our patients. We get it out of their emotional structure, out of their behavior, not out of their words. Words

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can’t express it. Here, in the very beginning, the spite develops. Here, the “no” develops, the big “NO” of humanity. And then you ask them why the world is in a mess.64

Poetically this Gnostic, Kabbalist, existentialist conception of birth as a Geworfenheit zum Tod is voiced by Samuel Beckett: “They give birth astride of a grave,” eulogizes Pozzo, “the light gleams an instant then it’s night once more.”65 The Kabbalist tzimtzum (contraction) is a mytho-empirical projection of pregnancy. This is clear from the following description of Divine contraction by Hayim Vital, “And when (God) contracts himself, a narrow pipe of light sprouts from one side of the round space, drawing light from Infinity and filling it up. This round space is the emanant and in this way (through the thin pipe) the emanator and emanant are tied together.”66 This is the depiction of the developmental process of pregnancy replete with the feeding of the growing fetus (the emanant) through the umbilical cord. The initiation of the tzimtzum was by way of the creation of a round space and a concentrated point within it.67 This again brings to mind the round womb and the fertilized ovum within it. Then, through a dialectical process of expansion (separation) and condensation (participation) and neo-platonic emanation, coagulation, and incorporation, the Adam Kadmon – the primeval archetypal man – is formed.68 Just as human birth was conceived by the Kabbala as a catastrophe, the tzimtzum, the contraction of pregnancy, is envisaged as the beginning of the flaw in the cosmic infinity, which culminated in the coagulation of material evil. This tzimtzum, which is both a contraction and a congestion, first effected a delimination of infinity, conceived as stern judgment and hence evil in the Kabbalist jargon. Second the tzimtzum was linked to the thickening of matter, which is related in turn to the substance of evil that fills the worlds.69 Furthermore, the contraction of the tzimtzum caused the boundless Divine light to dim and diminish and the cosmic vessels to materialize. This transition from boundless infinity to the formation of concrete vessels was the beginning of the exile from Divinity, as in the boundless Olam Ha’atzilut no profane matter or concrete vessels can exist or even be mentioned.70 The process of pregnancy is described in detail by the Lurianic Kabbala, which envisages the fetus as a core of Divinity, surrounded by the vile refuse and pollution that sprouts forth from the womb at birth.71 This description of pregnancy is almost identical to the description of the tzimtzum, the formation of the material vessels and the mixing therein of the sacred particles (reshimu) with the elements of profanity.72 In another instance, Rabbi Hayim Vital, who may be described as the Plato of Rabbi Isaac Luria’s oral teaching, states categorically that

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there is no temporal being without the congestion of tzimtzum, which is tantamount to stern judgment (i.e., evil).73 This initial congestion is syllogistically related by the Kabbala to both being and adverseness. The premise is that the tzimtzum, the condensation of a bounded something out of a boundless infinity, led to the congestion and materialization of the vessels. These vessels are expressly portrayed by the Kabbala as containers for the particles of light that were separated from Divinity, using the metaphor that the vessels are to the Divine particles like bodies are to souls.74 In another instance, the Kabbala compares the emanation of Divine lights into the vessels to the “secret of pregnancy of children in the entrails of their mother.”75 This indeed justifies the mytho-empirical interpretation of the tzimtzum as pregnancy. If the tzimtzum is the beginning of the profane coagulation of formless infinity into matter, the breaking of the vessels is the fully fledged catastrophe of the expulsion of the Divine particles into the exile of being. We will substantiate the claim that the Kabbalist myth of the breaking of the vessels is the mytho-empiric anchor for man’s disastrous transition from cushioned bliss in utero to the Geworfenheit zum Tod, the Heideggerean “thrownness unto death” of birth and of being in the world. The breaking of the vessels as expounded by the Kabbala recounts that when the vessels, the containers of Divine light, were shattered, a flow of waste materials and refuse (kellipot), together with some Divine sparks (reshimu) came into being. This striking comparison of birth to the breaking of the vessels also links both phenomena to a cosmic disaster which is instrumental to the creation of evil. Ibn Tabul’s conception of cosmology is that of God’s need for catharsis to cleanse himself from his inner sediments of refuse, and vileness. Thus pregnancy and the corporeal creation of man is a structured drainage of Divine refuse. Vital’s conception of cosmology is more closely related to God’s need to interact and to give.76 In both cases, creation and man serve some vital needs of God. This is the source of man’s temporal trials and his absurd sense of being manipulated for unknowable reasons, but it is simultaneously one of the main bases of man’s existential and moral freedom. After the breaking of the vessels, says Scholem, exile became a clandestine reality – one that is basic and permeates the whole system of being. Exile thus becomes a cosmic symbol.77 The mytho-empirical interpretation of the Kabbala relates the breaking of the vessels to a rather stormy dynamic not at all clandestine which is the expulsion of the neonate from his mother’s womb. One may assume that the feeling of the fetus in the womb is of a partaking in a totality of unity. In many ways, the wholeness of the nothingness of infinity, which signifies the Kabbalist

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Godhead, is the mytho-empirical projection of the holistic participation in utero. This participant totality is disrupted with increasing severing by the separant catastrophes of birth, the formation of an individual ego, and the normative rites of passage separating one from the nuclear and the extended family. In the Kabbala, the breaking of the vessels caused the strewn particles of Divinity to be scattered in the profanity of creation together with the kellipot, the shells of the vessels, which constitute the vile refuse incidental to the breaking of the cosmic vessels (birth). In a similar vein, Gnosis views childbirth as an exile into chaos, which is also coincidental with the formation of matter, metaphorized as the profane refuse accompanying birth, which becomes a part of chaos. The Gnostic Pisitis Sophia, equivalent to the Kabbalist Schechina, the Divine presence, saw matter and realized her error in creating it. She was disturbed, perturbed, and troubled, and this mood of hers crystallized as a horrifying creature descending into chaos. Here is a less-than-perfect God equivalent to the blemished God of the Kabbala. A mood of trouble and perturbation equivalent to the existentialist angst und sorge, fear and anxiety, which characterize man’s being in the world. When profane matter received the Divine image from Sophia it became the Demiourgos ruling creation with brute force without the knowledge (normative Gnosis) of the Godhead. Man was thus exiled into the temporal powers of the Demiourgos over whom the Godhead no longer had any authority. The archons, the servants of the Demiourgos, deceived man by the false appearances (apparently the outward image of Sophia) of matter and the earthly passions kindled by it.78

Evil For the Kabbala, the tortuous dilemma of Unde-Mallum (wherefrom evil) is readily explained by the breaking of the vessels. “The root of evil,” says Vital, “is the broken vessels; without them the eternal goodness would have reigned supreme in the world.”79 More specifically, the mythical kings fell down to the lower spheres as a result of the breaking of the vessels. This degradation of the Divine kings amounted to their death. Before, these kings were, according to the Zohar, part and parcel of Divinity. The cosmic catastrophe forced them to crystallize into material and separate existence, whereas they had partaken in the infinite wholeness. Moreover, this metamorphosis effected by the cosmic disaster is not only death but also burial. For the Kabbala, therefore, the genesis of cosmic evil is through the separation and particularization of fragments

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from the blissful bosom of infinity. “This death,” says the Kabbala, “is not real death, it is a degradation; if you wish, it’s like a woman giving birth and emitting thereby refuse and pollution.”80 The crucial point here is that the coming into being as a separate entity from boundless nonbeing seems to be the primal cause of evil. Birth is a symbolic death, as well, since one is born into dire separate existence and thereby dies to Divine nonbeing.81 The Kabbalistic concept of evil is shared by many other mythologies and cosmogonies. The Buddhists, for instance, regard the molding of the individual self out of the eternal non-awareness as a painful misfortune, which the individual must train himself to overcome.82 In Greek cosmogony, the sickle of Kronos that separated heaven from earth was regarded as essentially evil; Gnostic cosmogony, which is similar to the Kabbala, regards the existing world as a prison. The here-and-now is surrounded by barriers that separate it from Divinity. Archons guard the stranded souls who wish to escape from this world of strife and pain and prevent them from reunifying with the boundless Divinity. As the existence of the individual is evil, the Kabbala extends this vileness to the initiation of human exile by the separation of the newborn from his mother. For similar reasons, the Zoroastrians regarded fertility cults as evil.83 Jeh, the archetypal whore, as well as the first woman, in Zurvanite mythology, stems from the evil spirit.84 This is related to the evil nature of sexual desire symbolized by femininity. It could, however, mean more than that: human existence, per se, is evil. One of the Zurvanite texts states: “I come into this world, I receive evil, I am content with death.”85 The individual’s coming into this world (birth) is a disgrace; one yearns to receive this disaster and flee from life. It would follow that woman, the harbinger of this catastrophe, is one of the prime sources of evil. This would also explain the Gnostic aversion to women, since they breed the young of the species and thus expose more human beings to the squalor of this world. The Kabbala is blunt in its description of human existence in this world. Following the breaking of the vessels, this earth is pure waste, the world is dominated by evil, and scoundrels are always victorious; human life is dominated by Satan. The Kabbalistic concept of the vileness of temporal existence may also stem from Gnostic sources which regarded the here-and-now as a creation of sinister forces. This view of creation as evil is widespread: from the ancient Mesopotamian cosmogony, visualizing the world as sprouting out of the vile Tiamat, to the Buddhist Yoga, which laments, “All is painful, all is transient, all is pain, all is ephemeral.” It is interesting that in many cultures a vessel symbolizes woman as she contains the fetus in pregnancy and gives birth. Erich Neumann says:

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For obvious reasons woman is experienced as the vessel par excellence. Woman as body-vessel is the natural expression of the human experience of woman bearing the child “within” her and of man entering “into” her in the sexual act. Because the identity of the female personality with the encompassing body-vessel in which the child is sheltered belongs to the foundation of feminine existence, woman is not only the vessel that like every body contains something within itself, but, both for herself and the male, is the “life-vessel as such,” in which life forms, and which bears all living things and discharges them out of itself and into the world.”86

This, naturally, supports our interpretation of the Kabbalist myth of the breaking of the vessels as the traumatic experience of birth. The gist of the catastrophe of birth is that the individual is expelled from the grace of Divine nonbeing, which is the projected participant totality of predifferentiated early orality in utero, into the deprivational interaction with space, time, objects, and others in the world of being. This thrownness of the individual into the world is experienced by God as a descent, an incarnation, an embodiment, and, according to the extreme participant creeds, an incarnation of particles of Divinity in spatio-temporal objects and life-forms. Man, thus, re-implants into himself parts of Divinity as prime movers, which are, in turn, components of the aims of his personality core vectors as projected onto transcendence. The totality of nothingness is the early oral and uteral predifferentiated unity, and the thrownness into this world through birth is projected onto transcendence as the disruption of unity into plurality. In the early Kabbala of Gerona, the precreation, prebirth infinity (EinSof) is the indistinguishable unity (Ha-ahdut Ha-shava).87 This expression is especially pertinent since the indistinguishability of unity is stressed in contrast with the separation of the neonate from the totality of unity in utero. The perception of space and time, which for the neonate is tantamount to its creation, is in essence the cognition of distinguishable plurality distinct to indistinguishable unity. Another possible interpretation of Ha-ahdut Ha-shava, used by the early Gerona Kabbalists to denote the unity of pre-created infinity, is the equality of unity; before creation (birth) man is equal to God, but embodied creation and birth estranges man from God and exiles him from his Divine presence. This interpretation is upheld by David Ben Avraham Ha-Lavan, the thirteenth-century Kabbalist who said: “If all the powers returned to nothingness, the Primeval One who is the cause of all would remain in equal oneness in the depths of nothingness.”88 Similarly the Gnostic teacher, Basilides, states that the multiplicity of structures, spheres, and concentric partitions separating man from God

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express the depth of the cosmic dungeon in which man is imprisoned and thus removed from his sacred origins in unity.89 We have used the extreme participant creeds to illustrate our theories, as their extremities serve a didactic purpose. However, the separant creeds also regard birth as catastrophic. The Hesiodic cosmogenic myths tell of birth and creation through violence, deceit, and strife. Moreover, the Greek word Krisis (crisis) means, etymologically, separation. Consequentially, both participant and separant creeds regard creation and birth as catastrophic. While the participant creeds present the projection of man’s longing to revert back to his Divine origin by the nihilation of his temporal self, the separant creeds present the projection of man’s quest to overcome the rift and separation from his source and object by overpowering the objects and creatures in his surroundings and including them within his sphere of influence and control. We would like to stress that it is the transition from unity to plurality that enables relationships and, hence, the formation of space and sequences of time. The deprivational interaction of ego with the objects and others in spatio-temporality is thus a corollary of this initial transition from unity to plurality. Many cosmogenic myths depict the creation of the world as a fragmentation of a unitary mass, an ego that splits into the sky and the earth, or the breaking up of a primordial, anthropocosmic giant into the pluralities of spartio-temporality. In Taoism, creation is also envisaged as the splitting of the unitary totality of the Tao into the threefold manifestation of sky, earth, and subterranean regions. Similarly, Tantra Yoga describes creation as an explosion of the primary unity (advaja) into the incarnations of Shiva and Shakti. This duality implies relationships and, hence, suffering, illusion, and slavery.90

The Quest of Nonbeing This primary survey of some of the representative participant religions reveals their underlying perception of creation as a catastrophic breaking, splitting or explosion of the primeval unity into plurality effecting the relationships of space and time. All these creeds expound that the salvation of man and God is effected by the re-participation of the stranded particles and the return of the splintered fragments to the original unity. This is, in essence, the meaning of the Kabbalist tikkun, the Gnostic “ascent,” the Tantric sadhana, and the samadhi of classical Yoga, which leads initiates back to the bliss of the precreation unity of nonbeing.

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For participant creeds, separation is evil and the embodiment inherent in creation is profane. This is evident in the neo-Platonic and Plotinic concepts of evil: the gradual privation of the Divine Light (Privatio Boni) from the incarnated and opaque objects and creatures in the temporal world. This emanationist concept of the profanity of creation was adopted both by the Kabbala and Gnosis. The Kabbala speaks of the transition from the pure Torah D’atzilut in infinity to the limited, incarnated, and hence profane Torah Debriah. There is a parallel transition of man from Adam D’atzilut in the sacredness of nonbeing to the temporal embodied Adam Debriah in the world of creation. For the Gnostics, the world of creation is not only profane, but positively evil. It is a cosmic prison, guarded by the seven archons, whose names are synonyms of the Old Testament God and presided over by fate (heimarmene), which enslaves man to the rules of space and time.91 Before creation man was embedded, according to the Kabbala, in the blissful womb of infinity. The expression “womb of infinity” is actually used by a Kabbalist text,92 and it constitutes another mytho-empirical anchor for the participant creed’s derogation of temporal existence as a projection of the catastrophic expulsion of the neonate from his blissful suspended animation in the womb. Man’s body is an outer cloak, a profane garment, effecting his exile from his Divine origin in boundless infinity. The Gnostics also stress the precreation and prebirth perfection within the womb. Simon Magus says: “Grant Paradise to be the womb, for Scripture teaches us that this is a true assumption when it says: ‘I am He that formed thee in thy mother’s womb’ (Isaiah 44:2) …Moses…. using allegory had declared Paradise to be the womb… and Eden, the placenta…” And the Sethian Gnostics state: “Heaven and earth have a shape similar to the womb …and if… anyone wants to investigate this, let him carefully examine the pregnant womb of any living creature and he will discover an image of the heavens and earth.” The creation and birth turned unity into diversity, the shape (schema) of the things and the body is “deficiency” and the coagulation (plasma) of concrete forms is error (plané), terror, and anguish.” This is the projection of the anguish and terror of the neonate as he is expelled from the womb and the subsequent deprivational interaction with his surroundings. The result is that the lower Sophia (Achamoth) is expelled because of the “error” of creation “into the space of the Shadow and the Void.” This embodied exile resembles the inherent Schechina’s (Divine presence) awareness in Kabbala of its separation from the Divine wholeness of the pleroma and its participant longing to reunite with it.93 This process of separant thrownness into spatio-temporality and the longing to revert to nonbeing is the dialectic that governs all creation as

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well as the dynamics and structure of the individual human psyche. The intra-psychic dialectics of separation and participation are projected onto transcendence in the Kabbala as the contraction and expansion of cosmic light streaming from infinity and longing to revert back to it; this structures the development and constitutes the system-in-balance of the universe.94 Heidegger’s dasein, which is the primary ontological entity and channel of awareness,95 has its counterpart in Gnosis. Hans Jonas, the pioneering scholar of Gnosis, has analysed this in a special epilogue to his book on the Gnostic religion. This makes Gnosis a particularly apt mythoempirical anchor for our premises. Jonas sees in the Gnostic Mandaean literature the counterpart to Heidegger’s Geworfenheit zum Tod and to Pascal’s statement that man is “cast into the infinite immensity of spaces.” Jonas says: In Mandaean literature it is a standing phrase: life has been thrown into the world, light into darkness, the soul into the body. It expresses the original violence done to me in making me be where I am and what I am, the passivity of my choiceless emergence into an existing world which I did not make and whose law is not mine. But the image of the thrown also imparts a dynamic character to the whole of the existence thus initiated. In our formula, this is taken up by the image of speeding toward some end. Ejected into the world, life is a kind of trajectory projecting itself forward into the future.96

The basic tenets of existentialism and Gnosis may serve also as a partial vindication of the mytho-empirical method according to which the dynamics of the development of man and the human condition are projected as myths, which are the building blocks of religions. The basic concept of Gnosis is that birth and embodiment are tantamount to the death of man’s precreation partaking in the light of infinity. Of note is that both Gnosis and the Kabbala regard birth as a cosmic catastrophe where Divine particles of light intermingle with profane parts of temporal shells (Kabbala) or darkness (Gnosis).97 The sacred origin from which souls are exiled is, according to Iranian Gnosticism, “a world of splendor and of Light without darkness, a world of mildness without rebellion, a world of eternal life without decay and death, a world of goodness without evil, a pure world unmixed with ill.”98 This is a striking instance of a mythoempirical projection of early oral bliss, the omnipresence and omnipotence in utero expressed in a total harmonious lack of strife and authentic selfsufficiency. By contrast, the following excerpt is a projection of the postcreation world of strife, which is a “world of darkness, utterly full of evil,

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full of devouring fire, full of falsehood and deceit. A world of turbulence without steadfastness, a world of death without eternal life, a world in which the good things perish and plans come to naught.”99 This is the world in which the neonate finds himself after birth. He has to cope with changing temperatures, and the breathing of air, which in the beginning feels like molten lava searing the lungs.100 Food may not always be available: the breast may be dry or the bottle empty. Hard surfaces are painful, and one’s desires and expectations in the temporal world can never be fulfilled; they either wither away like Tantalic hazes or fall into the abyss like Sisyphean rocks. Within the totality of pre-created unity, there is no death. Mortality is the result of being thrown into a world of limited space, of sequential time, and a perishable body. In pre-created unity there is no deprivational interaction and no fear and anxiety; after the split from unity the thrown individual is confronted in existential dread with the plurality of objects and others. This developmental transition from unity to plurality through birth and creation, which is also the source of fear underlying the whole of existence, is projected onto transcendence and expressed by the Upanishads: “As there is nothing but myself, why should I fear. Thence his fear passed away. For what should we have feared? Verily fear arises from a second only.” This indeed is a precursor to the Sartrean assertion the “hell is the other”101. The idea of innocence is often projected onto transcendence and is illustrated by a newborn, especially a small child, a young lamb, or a newly hatched bird confronting menacing and frightening surroundings. A more solid mytho-empirical anchor for our premise is provided by the emotions that mark the exile of the lower Sophia in her spatio-temporal existence. These are “fear, bewilderment (shock), grief, and ignorance.”102 This is again a projection of the shock of birth and the subsequent deprivational interaction of the neonate with his surroundings. This primary Gnostic dread, which marks man’s thrownness-in-the-world of matter and perishable bodies, is posited by Heidegger as a pivotal element of his philosophy. “The world as such is that in the face of which one has anxiety.”103 Dread (angst) is, therefore, the primary mood of man’s existence in the world, or in Heidegger’s words, anxiety is “dasein’s primordial totality of being.”104 Similarly, Kierkegaard’s earlier “fear and trembling unto death,” signifies man’s interaction with his objective and human surroundings, projected by him as his basic relationship with God.105 The separant vector is frightened of death, because its essence is the sprouting of temporal life and the development and strengthening of the

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living organism. The instinct of self-preservation found in all life forms, and the pain that is incidental to any injury to the organism are the guardians of Sisyphean temporal existence. On the other hand, our participant vector yearns for death, not because it craves extinction, but because death to temporal life signifies the return to the original perfection of totality. In Gnosis this totality is depicted by Valentinus as the “Mother of All” and the “Graceful, Silent Womb.”106 The telltale images of grace, silence, and the womb, point to the projection of the silent mother of early orality who cannot yet communicate verbally with her child and the omnipresence of the unborn child in utero. The secret books of the Gnostics describe the Divine mother as “the image of the invisible, virginal, perfect spirit … She became the Mother of everything, for she existed before them all.107” In another Gnostic text, the Trimorphic Proternoia, the primal mother describes herself as the “thought that (dwells) in (the Light)… (she who exists) before the all… I move in every creature… I am the Invisible One within the All. ”108 In Gnosis, therefore, death is a liberation, the longed for ascent from the person of the body in spatio-temporality to the grace of the all-engulfing embrace of the primal mother. Other participant creeds view death as a transition of the particles of God in the creatures back to their origin in unity. Hence death is not a catastrophe but a prize. This attitude is shared, mutatis mutandis, by many participant religions: by Meister Eckhart, by the Jewish mystical philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, by Carl Jung, who declared in an interview some time before his death that “he knows” that after death he will partake in the Unity of God, and by Graham Green who, when asked if he awaits the Nobel Prize, answered that he awaits the greatest prize of them all – death. We do not want to pass judgment on the scientific validity of the “life after life” studies of people who have experienced a clinical death and then survived. One may consider their accounts of a blissful and joyful partaking in an “entity of light,” as a projective dynamic of their participant longing to revert back to the totality of unity in early orality and in utero.

The Linkage We should point out that the Jewish mytho-empiricism concentrates mostly on the link between the synchronic “no space-time” and diachronicity. The Jewish God Ehyeh asher Ehyeh is a continuous present-future and the Burning Bush is a mythogenic representation of a possible link between synchronic monotheism, Divinity, and diachronic creation, which is so

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central to Judaic mytho-empiricism. Pagan mytho-empiricism is mostly anchored, as we shall see, on the diachronic cycles of nature. Special relativity postulates that for an observer within the diachronic aquarium, an object approaching the speed of light will shrink and finally disappear. Likewise, time will slow and at the speed of light comes to a standstill. Thus, the speed of light is the abstract standard of speed-time against which all the movements and positions within the diachronic aquarium are compared.109 Hence the speed of light is the internal barrier of the spatio-temporal aquarium. No object or life-form can, therefore, escape from the diachronic aquarium and still keep its shape and essence. The synchronic quantum world is guarded by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle so that only partial information can be gleaned by those in the aquarium. Mytho-empirically, these two barriers are the cherubim who protect the information in the concealed sacred realm of synchronicity from “unauthorized” epistemic knowledge of the mortal inhabitants of the classic aquarium. This forbidden knowledge, if usurped by the dwellers of the aquarium (so reenacting the Original Sin), would be injurious to their well-being, or confound the controlled experiment carried out in the aquarium by whoever set it up: chance, evolution, God or the devil. The mystical ascent of the Sufi master Ibn Arabi is of interest to us. He described the ascent in which he reached the last barrier, the Sidrat alMuntaha (a lotus tree marking the end of the Seventh Heaven), beyond which he could not rise any further and he became nothing but light110 This is in keeping with the special theory of relativity. Hawkins tries, in a formalistic geometrical manner, to describe the boundaries of space-time beyond which there is no definite diachronicity and no locality.111 In the synchronic quantum world we have the stochastic wave function, Bohm’s implicate order, and the superposition of states, which is the potential nothingness of wholeness and is all but incomprehensible to our reason and is imperceptible to our senses and to their extension in measuring instruments. The mytho-empirical anchor for the creation of the diachronic aquarium as expounded by Lurianic Kabbala, is elaborate and ingenious. The breaking of the vessels is the disruption of the sefirot, God’s holographic epiphanies, as a result of inherent vileness in Divinity. This effects a disruption of the seven lower sefirot and a concomitant catharsis, a cleansing of God of His evil components. The three upper sefirot, the keter (crown), hochma (wisdom), and bina (intelligence) were not disrupted and they remained in their synchronic sacred origin in the EinSof (infinity). Lurianic Kabbala describes how, after the breaking of the vessels, the Divine light was refracted from the Adam Kadmon, God’s

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anthropomorphic epiphany as primal man, into all the sefirot which were then ordered into partzufim (countenances). The first one is arich-anpin, a structuring of the keter, the crown. The arich-anpin is the long-suffering Godhead because of inner corruption. The second partzuf is abba, literally “father,” represents hochma, wisdom. The third partzuf is imma, “mother,” reflecting bina, intelligence. The lower male countenance, ze’er anpin (the impatient one), represents masculinity, constantly prodded by his erotic passions. Ze’er anpin is composed of six sefirot: hessed (grace), din (stern judgment), netzah (eternity), hod (glory), yessod (foundation), and tiferet (splendor). The last partzuf is nukbah, which represents malchut, “kingdom,” the feminine counterpart of ze’er anpin, constantly lubricated by the feminine liquids.112 The upper maternal and paternal countenances were perpetually entwined in an agapic embrace whereas the lower countenances engaged in erotic intercourse as a means of creation. Indeed, the diachronic aquarium was created by the lower countenances which were disengaged from the upper sefirot as a method of purification. This striking imagery brings forth the Gnostic value judgment of Lurianic Kabbala against spatio-temporal creation. The vileness of Divinity disrupted by the breaking of the vessels provided raw material for the profane spatio-temporal aquarium, whereas the three cleansed countenances remained in the sacred non-local abstract, ethereal potential of the non-emanated synchronicity. Equally interesting is the relationship of God’s countenances with the four worlds as envisaged by the Kabbala. The first is the world of atzilut. This is the domain of the non-emanated Godhead, arich-anpin. The second is the world of briah where the Divine angels are generated by the spiritual agapic mating of the upper maternal and paternal countenances. The third is the world of yezirah, the domain of creativity. This is the interstitial, tangential world between Divinity and the profane last world of Asiyyah, the world of artifacts, history and the diachronic aquarium.113 The mediating world of creativity is where the Mythogenic Structures are formed. The revelation stemming from the upper worlds and the experience flowing from the lower world of Asiyyah are combined into mythogenes generating all the art, artifacts, culture, objects and life forms in the diachronic aquarium of Asiyyah. A positive feedback cycle is thus formed:

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Synchronic worlds of atzilut and briahAuthentic Domain. Revelation into Mythogenic Structure

Mythologies Synchronic worlds of atzilut briah

Mythogenes Interstitial world of yezirah

Through revelation, the mediating world of creativity structures the Mythogenic Structures by combining experiences stemming from the upper and lower worlds. The mythogene is then ingrained in the created medium, be it an object, life form, art or artifact. When the mythogene has fulfilled its purpose and is evolutionally and structurally viable, it becomes part of the mythologies of the social characters. From here, if they are viable and authentic, the mythologies are admitted to the reservoir of mythogenes in the upper synchronic worlds. When the need for a specific mythogene arises, the revelation of a Homo faber, a creator in the diachronic world of Asiyyah, integrates it again into a structure and in a created medium da capo ad infinitum. The so-called Measurement problem in quantum mechanics stems, first of all, from the fact that any observation of quantum particles or waves from the classic world may flood them with light or any other form of energy, and thus affect their position, momentum or any other parameter.114 The main issue, however, is that the measurement of the physical system by a human observer makes the human psyche partner to the actual creation of the physical system; before the measurement, all that exists in the quantum world is a stochastic probability function or an implicate order. The measurement “collapses” the probability wave into a physical state and transforms the potentiality of the implicate order into an explicable order. The so-called Anthropic Principle in physics becomes crucial as it is the indeterministic action of the human being that is instrumental, in creating the observable eigenstate through an interaction with the physical system.

Man the Mediator In the previous chapter we discussed the Weak and Strong Anthropic Principles. A further step in the symbiotic relationship between man and

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Creation is proposed by Wheeler, who expounded the Participant Anthropic Principle (PAP), stating, “Observers are necessary to bring the universe into being.”115 This is in line with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which postulates a necessary interaction between observer and observed to create matter. Wheeler, however, raises this quantum mechanical dyad to a cosmic level. Ultimately, we have the Final Anthropic Principle (FAP), which posits, “Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.”116 We are even more extreme. We hold that the ani consciousness and energy-matter were always there as a basic duality. What is formed (whether by chance or by an intentional act is irrelevant for our present purposes) is the Mythogenic Structure which links the ani consciousness and energy-matter into an ever evolving artifact or life form. Hence, the constant kaleidoscopic interaction between the primordial ani consciousness and energy is the mytho-empirical anchor of a self-sustaining triad: ani consciousness, energy, and the Mythogenic Structure, linking and constantly transforming them into endless spirals of creations, transformations, and evolution. Man in this model is just an ad hoc intermediate connecting structure, which well evolve into as yet unknown and unpredictable heights or abysses depending on our value judgment. And this leads us to our crucial point. Our conception of the anthropic principle does lead to, and allow for, the formation of meanings, values, and norms. As Barrow and Tipler rightly state: Although the Final Anthropic Principle is a statement of physics and hence, ipso facto, has no ethical or moral content, it nevertheless is closely connected with moral values, for the validity of the FAP is the physical precondition for moral values to arise and to continue to exist in the universe; no moral values of any sort can exist in a lifeless cosmology. Furthermore, the FAP seems to imply a melioristic cosmos.117

Indeed, our version of the FAP enables man to imbue his objective and biological surroundings with meanings, values, and norms. Our stance is that an observer need not have been created for the world to be observed. He was always there in the essence of the ani consciousness. The observed was also there as energy-matter. What was ever changing, transforming, and developing was the linking agent between the two. The two polar components of our world are so starkly divergent in all parameters, that there could be no direct interaction between the two. Only when the first linking structure was being formed- be it by chance or intention- could the endless variation of objects, artifacts, and life forms be created. The

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holonic nature of our Mythogenic Structures in the Koestlerian sense make for the transformation of Mythogenic Structures into creations, according to the hierarchy of contexts in which they interact. Thus the Mythogenic Structure, contained in the quantum measurement instrument, processes a photon. A seed, as a Mythogenic Structure, would produce a tree, and an architect’s design, a Mythogenic Structure of a bridge. To date, there seems to be no more versatile, efficient, and durable synthesizer between the ani- consciousness and energy than Homo sapiens. But this is subject to evolution, and once man is dethroned and surpassed as a metaMythogenic Structure, the anthropic principle would have to be renamed after this more versatile and durable connecting agent. Until this happens, the anthropic principle posits man as the most efficient meta-Mythogenic Structure, integrating the ani consciousness and the dimensions of space and time, through his soma and psyche. Special relativity thus becomes linked to our conception of the anthropic principle, insofar as it envisages space and time as observer anchored. Indeed, we regard space-time as engulfing the specific ani consciousness of Ego within the context of his being a meta connecting agent. The integration of space-time and consciousness within each individual is sui generis and peculiar to himself. Hence, the space-time-consciousness configuration of each individual is relativistic vis-à-vis the space-time consciousness configuration of any other. This is not a Kantian conception of time-space as built-in mind filters, but rather a relativistic conception of space-time as a manifestation of energy-matter containing, in a holonic manner, the ani consciousness reflected in each life form and artifact. Mytho-empirically, this is projected in theosophical Kabbala as the sefirot, being a holonic integration of Divine lights and garments.118 If we accept Penrose’s Quantum Gravity theory, the act of measurement (Penrose’s R), which collapses the Ȍ wave function into a particle eigenstate, is linked to quantum gravity. Says Penrose: As soon as a “significant” amount of space-time curvature is introduced, the rules of quantum linear superposition must fail. It is here that the complex-amplitude superpositions of potentially alternative states become replaced by probability weight actual alternatives- and one of the alternatives indeed actually takes place. What do I mean by a “significant” amount of curvature? I mean that the level has been reached where the measure of curvature introduced has about the scale of one graviton or more… One graviton would be the smallest unit of curvature that would be allowed according to the quantum theory. The idea is that, as soon as this level is reached, the ordinary rules of linear superposition according to the U procedure, become modified when

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In our terms, the space-time curvature of general relativity engulfs the Mythogenic Structure, with its contained ani consciousness, and creates the PH eigenstate of a particle. In this manner our conception of the anthropic principle receives a relativistic anchor both on the classical and quantum levels. We cannot and do not wish to delve into the biological and evolutionary implications of the anthropic principle, which relate to the bio-structural and environmental parameters of the organism. However, we will concern ourselves with the fact that man is the most efficient viable mediator and integrator of the ani –consciousness and energy-matter (until the processes of evolution dethrone him), because of his freedom of choice and cognitive intentionality, which lends meaning and value to his creative mediations. We hold that all life forms possess varying degrees of freedom of choice. When an amoeba “chooses” to move in one direction rather than another, its decision is indeterministic. When a bromeliacae seed “decides” to fasten itself on to a dead piece of wood, although barren and devoid of nourishment, it is an indeterministic decision with far-reaching evolutionary effects. It must develop the capacity for food absorption through its chalice or become extinct. We have already elaborated on the crucial difference between the Buberian I-It artifacts, from quantum measuring instruments to computers with “canned” consciousness and no freedom of the will and the ani consciousness, embedded in all life forms, which do have freedom of choice. The most elaborate freedom of choice rests with man. He may choose to develop his creative potential following authentic experiences of revelation, thereby lending his own life meaning, as well as imbuing his surroundings with meaning. On the other hand, he may choose not to develop his potential for revelation and creativity. He may thence be drawn into cycles of inauthenticity and alienation like

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Gaugin who could have chosen but did not remain within the cozy, stifling bosom of fashionable, bourgeois tous Paris. Such freedom of choice, and its resultant inner and outer meaningfulness, may lend evolutionary viability to our conception of the anthropic principle. Man, as the metaMythogenic Structure linking the ani consciousness and energy-matter, need not change his external environment in order to achieve optimal viability. He may achieve better results by transforming the meaning of his surroundings and adapting them to changing inner or outer situations and processes. Thus man’s ability to adapt and adjust meanings, values and norms enhances his evolutionary viability as the meta-integrator between the ani consciousness and energy-matter. Mytho-empirically such evaluation and normalization is already seen in Genesis, where it is written, “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.”120 This is in line with our mytho-empirical conception of God as the projection of the ani consciousness, which is normatively neutral. Hence man, the anthropic integrator, is the name-giver, the Logos-endower, which is capable of lending meaning and value to his surroundings. We hold this name giving to be an attempt by man as the meta-mediator to bridge between the ani consciousness and energy-matter. Man may imbue his surroundings with meanings and values by creativity, by trying to mold objects and others in his own image. This he performs by implanting his contained consciousness on a canvas to be transmitted to generations of viewers. Or, he can transmit his innovations to his student or colleague, maieutically. To be effectively communicable, the processes of creativity must be authentic; then the Mythogenic Structure carries the message and imbues the objective and living surroundings with meanings and values. But these are Ego’s own meanings and values, as conceived by him and as implanted onto his surroundings in a manner unique to himself. This stems from the fact that each individual reflects his ani consciousness through his unique bio-psycho-social configuration. The uniqueness of the creator is thus paired with the uniqueness of the creation. Hence, according to Sumerian mytho-empirical sources, man was created inter alia, to imitate the gods in further creating and preserving the system-in-balance of the cosmos.121 Man the creator thus becomes God. The Anthropic Homo creator is mytho-empiricized by the Lurianic Kabbala as Adam Kadmon, the Primal man. Scholem tells us that the “Adam Kadmon is nothing but a first configuration of the Divine light

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which flows from the essence of En-Sof into the primeval space created by the tzimtzum – the contraction of God, not from all sides, but like a beam, in one direction only. He therefore is the first and highest form in which the Divinity begins to manifest itself after the tzimtzum. From his eyes, mouth, ears and nose, the lights of the sefirot burst forth. At first these lights were coalesced in a totality without any differentiation between the various sefirot; in this state they did not require bowls or vessels to hold them. The lights coming from the eyes, however, emanated in an ‘atomized’ form in which every sefirah was an isolated point.”122 This is a forceful portrayal of the supernal man as an actual source for the creation of the world and its creature. Our contention that the creation of physical systems and creatures was mediated by man is vindicated mytho-empirically by the verse in Genesis “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him.”123 Prima facie, this is sacrilege; this contravenes the first commandment. However, if we adopt the role of the Lurianic Adam Kadmon as the anthropic mediating medium for creating the world and its creatures, then its reflection as the supernal Divine epiphany in every creature makes the creation of man in God’s image theologically and canonically acceptable. God, through Adam Kadmon the primal anthropos, is reflected in man as his consciousness. It is the image of God which creates, through man, the eigenstate of physical systems and creatures. This is mytho-empiricized in the description of the resourceful and creative Joseph as “full of the spirit of God.”124

The Measurement Problem The basic premise of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics is that the stochastic wave function evolves in the quantum world linearly and deterministically, whereas the decision to measure a wave or a particle is indeterministic. Indeed, the delayed choice experiment as designed by John A. Wheeler, one of the more extreme exponents of the Copenhagen interpretation, goes so far as to deny any reality to the quanta in the double-slit experiment, even after they have passed through the two slits. In a “delayed choice,” the observer can then decide whether he wants to measure a particle or a wave. Wheeler’s thought experiment is conducted as follows: The two slits focus on a lens, which passes light onto another lens instead of the photographic plate in the standard experimental design. The recording lens can diverge photons coming from the two slits onto right and left detectors, corresponding to the right and left slits. A cross-section of Wheeler’s “delayed choice” experiment is described as follows. On the second lens, Venetian blinds can open to allow photons

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to pass, or close and thus serve as the photographic screen of the standard, double-slit experiment. The observer can then decide, after the photons have already passed the double slits, whether he wishes to measure particles and leave the Venetian blinds on the second lens open. In this case, the detectors record the particles. Alternatively, he may decide to close the blinds, and then he gets the interference pattern of waves on the photographic surface of the closed Venetian blinds.125 Before the measurement, argues Wheeler, there was no quantum event. Both the particle and the interference pattern were created by the act of measurement. However, the Copenhagen interpretation presents the probabilities of detecting a particle or a wave by a probability wave function, which does not relate to a real quantum state; yet this presumably non-real probability wave function leaves an interference pattern on the double-slit experiment’s photographic screen, if not interrupted by particle detectors. The wave seems to be real, if not interfered with by an instrument that measures particles. The Copenhagen interpretation, as formally presented by Von Neumann, contains an inconsistency: its conceptualization of the interference pattern of the waves in the double-slit experiment as an “interference of probabilities,”126 is a contradiction in terms, because the interference pattern of the waves is not probabilistic, but rather registered on the photographic screen. However, the formalism of quantum mechanics, as presented by Von Neumann, initially describes a probability wave function ȥ(x), which is the probability that a particle may be detected at point x (the Schrödinger equation of motion). This probability equation is linear and deterministic, yet when a particle is observed, the probability wave function collapses and the existence of a real particle becomes a certainty (probability 1). Bohm interprets this collapse as the result of an indeterministic, subjective choice by the observer. “Our knowledge of the system,” he says, “suddenly changes.”127 This, according to Von Neumann, is a reduction of a “pure state function” (which is not an eigenstate) into a real particle (an eigenstate of the observable). This measurement, as decided upon indeterministically when the observer collapses the wave probability function into a certainty, is discontinuous and non-linear. Moreover, Von Neumann argues that the boundary between the measured quantum system and the observer can be shifted arbitrarily along the measurement chain into the brain of the observer. What is observed definitely depends upon the choice of the measurement arrangement. The state of the system, before the completion of the measurement, is not well defined until it has been concretized by an irreversible act of the observer.

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Yet, cutting the measurement chain between the measuring apparatus and the quantum system, and cutting it between the observer and the measuring apparatus have, in principle, entirely incompatible observable consequences. This is because the Copenhagen interpretation does not provide definite criteria and satisfactory explanations for the transition from classic objects, like the observer and the measuring instrument, to quanta objects, like particles. Thus, the Copenhagen interpretation suffers from an inherent disconnectedness between what it describes as “macro reality,” on the one hand, and “quantum non-reality,” on the other. Finally, the Copenhagen interpretation, as we have mentioned, claims that the observer and the observed actually create quanta by their interaction, but does not tell us how since there is an uncertainty border between the macro and micro worlds. Concerning Von Neumann’s mathematical formalism describing the collapse of the Schrödinger wave function into a defined physical eigenstate, we may point out the following problems: first, the Schrödinger wave function – onto which the probability of finding a particle is “smeared,” according to Bohr, and measured by the square of its amplitude – is linear and deterministic. The collapse of the wave function of the quantum system, as formulated by Von Neumann, is stochastic and nonlinear. Hence, there is a dynamic disconnectedness between the movement of the wave function and its collapse into a physical eigenstate. A second point of criticism is that, according to Von Neumann, the collapse may be effected anywhere between the physical system and the brain of the observer; yet the dynamics are bound to be different if the collapsing measurement is effected by the measuring instrument. According to our reassessment of the Copenhagen interpretation, in which a complementarity relationship takes place between a valueendowing human psyche and a quantum system, the formation of a clearly defined phenomenon is as follows: The act of measurement plunges the measured quantum system, both the measurement instrument and the observer’s brain, into a “superposition of states.” This is the murky “quantum soup” of non-defined, entangled probability waves and their squared amplitudes. The subsequent collapse of the wave function is carried out by a mythogene, originating in the human brain and engulfed by a hermetic force field. We have denoted this as the hermetic force, after Hermes, the messenger of the Greek Gods, since its function is to link the cognition of the observer as contained in the measurement instrument (including the human being) and to measure a quantum system. The virtual particle which is sent out by the bonding mythogene has only a shadowy physical existence, hence it can violate the uncertainty barrier. As the

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uncertainty relationship postulates, (¨E.¨T •h), where E is energy, T is time, and h is Plank’s constant. If E tends to 0, T tends to ’. Hence, a virtual particle, which borrowed a minute amount of energy, may exist for a relatively long time. As we do not grasp quarks and gluons, but only perceptible phenomena, the collapse of the wave function into a defined physical state is essentially a cognitive one. Obviously, the decision to measure a particle by placing a monitor in one of the slits in the double slit experiment, or having the two slits as is with the intention of recording on the photographic screen, the interference of a wave is indeterministic and decided upon by the measurer. The “collapse” of the wave function into an eigenstate of a particle or a wave is the choice of Homo creator, man the creator. What collapses the wave function? Mytho-empirically it is the spirit of God, the anima mundi, as reflected in man. The image of God as presented in man.128 The primeval dualism of spirit and matter is, of course, mytho-empiricized in Genesis: “And the spirit of God moved [or, as in the Hebrew, hovered] over the waters.”129 We contend that the express intentional wish of the measurer creates the Mythogenic Structure by the revelatory exposure to synchronicity, which is then structured into the longing component of the mythogene. The mythogene sends a virtual particle, a photon, a gluon or a graviton (which would “steal over” the uncertainty barrier) as follows: The formula of the uncertainty barrier is: ¨T.¨E •h. Thus if T = time is high, E = energy is low and vice-versa. A virtual particle traveling very fast may “jump over” the uncertainty barrier, even if the particle’s energy is low, without violating its limits. It can then transmit its message to the wave function to collapse into a particle, or stay a wave, and jump back quickly with an enhanced velocity effected by the resonance dynamic described as follows. The link between the cognitive system and the physical one is carried out by the mythogene through a maieutic Socratic resonance. The Socratic, maieutic, dialogic relationship was not foreign to Bohr, since it had been expounded previously by Kierkegaard, the Danish founder of dialogic existentialism. This maieutic relationship entails a mediating, generative triggering by the virtual particle and the mythogene. Together they clone a virtual wave function, which fits like a cognitive halo around the wave function in the quantum world. The cloned virtual wave function then interacts with the initial function through a resonance. According to Riordan, “these nuclear resonances have proved to be excited, short-lived states that are momentary flirtations of a pion and a nucleon. In pionnucleon scattering, a pion can be caught in the momentary embrace of a nucleon; they orbit each other briefly before separating once again. Think

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of two dancers coming together in a square dance, embracing warmly and swinging fondly, before parting and going their separate ways.130 The virtual particles jump back over the uncertainty barrier having completed their mission in the quantum world. The resonance “minuet” is the maieutic interaction by means of which the virtual cognitive collapse is effected. A minute quantity of energy is transmitted by the resonance to collapse the superimposed relationship, so that whoever observes the physical state will perceive the same object. The resonance triggered by a maieutic interaction between the cognition of the observer and the quantum system, must be in a well-defined observable state, for all observers. This is expressed mytho-empirically in Lurianic Kabbala. There is a distinction between the world of atzilut and the three other worlds. Atzilut is conceived as being substantially identical to the Divinity and the EinSof, but from then on, Luria tries to draw a firm dividing line, a “curtain.” The power emanating from the substance passes through the filter of the “curtain.” This power then becomes the substance of the next world. “Not Ein- Sof itself is dispersed in the nether worlds,” says Luria, “but only a radiance [differing from his substance], haarah, which emanates from him.”131 This striking imagery of Lurianic Kabbala explains the creation of the worlds by the reflection of the Divine lights over the barriers dividing the worlds. Only the haarah, the virtual reflection, is the indirect agent of creativity initiating the emanation of the lower worlds through the “veils.” Each consecutive world is divided from the upper ones and all these worlds are divided from the original emission. The Kabbala also utilizes the dynamic of ratzo-vashov, which depicts the movement of the direct rays of light and their reflection in a to-and-fro movement, which may also be a mytho-empirical anchor to the movement of the virtual particles from the classic world to the quantum synchronicity and their return over the uncertainty barrier to the diachronic aquarium. We have seen that the quantum world is devoid of spatio-temporality. The superposition of states, the wave function, and the implicate order are probabilities of finding a particle or a wave. These are abstract constructs not linked directly to our diachronic aquarium. The before and after of the diachronic aquarium is meaningless in the quantum world where no observables exist as yet to measure temporal sequences in relation to stationary or moving objects. This superposition of states and the wave function always evolve symmetrically whereas the diachronic aquarium is both temporally asymmetrical and its entropy designates for us the classic arrow of time.

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The quantum world has no images. It has only potential probability waves when the indeterministic observation structures a holographic mythogene which sends a virtual particle over the uncertainty barrier. It reveals what kind of an image, the Greek eidolon, it intends to bring to the diachronic aquarium. The measurement process is completed with the physical eigentate materializing in front of our senses: an atom, a molecule, Schrödinger’s Cat, a Mozart symphony, all of which cannot exist in the quantum world.

The Mythogenic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Our proposed model of the relationship between the diachronic aquarium and the quantum world may be described as follows: We assume a free indeterministic consciousness existing independently of matter. It is defined as an essence without temporal and spatial dimensions. It is a reflection of the universal consciousness, the neo-Platonic Nous in each life-form and object. The interaction between consciousness and matter systems is assumed to be possible. It is stipulated to generate the actual physical phenomena. However, this interaction cannot be direct. It is assumed to be always mediated by the observer’s brain which controls the actual development and content of conscious states associated with the observer’s perception and memory. Mytho-empirically this is postulated by the impossibility of observing the direct sacred light. Thus when Moses asks God “I beseech thee shew me thy glory,” God answers, “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me, and live. Thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen.”132 Divinity in our context is a clandestine synchronic quantum world that can only be observed indirectly. As we shall see, this conception avoids the pitfalls of solipsism, risked by all those who postulate multiple consciousnesses. The main assumption of this model is that consciousness does not obey the Schrödinger equation, and hence can never be in a superposition of states. The agents of action within the brain through which consciousness interacts with quantum systems, is the Mythogenic Structure. This Mythogenic Structure contains a holographic virtual image of the object that is to be measured. The Mythogenic Structure in the observer’s brain then sends a virtual particle to the quantum world. Since the uncertainty relationship postulates ¨E.¨T •h, a virtual particle with low energy may “steal” the uncertainty barrier and rush back without violating the uncertainty relationship. This bouncing back of the virtual particle is facilitated by the resonance dynamic described earlier.

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Our model postulates that the virtual particles carrying the virtual holographic image do not obey the Schrödinger equation and the principle of linear superposition of states. A process of cloning takes place in the Mythogenic Structure in the observer’s brain that is necessary for measurement completeness. This dynamic effects a coupling of the Schrödinger wave function with the holographic image in the Mythogenic Structure and is conveyed by the virtual messenger particles. This results in a cloned memory state recorded in the observer’s psyche. Finally, an effective collapse of the cloned wave function into a definite memory state occurs. The effective reduced state is determined by the position of the virtual particle in the cloned field. Yet the brain state of the observer remains superposed according to the quantum mechanical Schrödinger equation. Thus, the collapse of the cloned state is virtual as it does not alter the physical brain state of the observer nor the state of the quantum system measured. Effectively, the final, reduced state of the cloned field corresponds to a definite cognitive state of the observer’s memory. It is a hypothesis of this model that since the mythogenic processes are virtual, they link the cognitive subjective appearances of the observer with quantum reality. Also, the resonance relationship of the virtual particle with Schrödinger’s wave function in the quantum world assures that the measurable will be the same for every observer and not only the one who structured the specific mythogene. The step-by-step linkage between the classic and the quantum worlds, and the creation of a physical eigenstate through the mediation of the Mythogenic Structure is detailed as follows: 1. The observer, following his indeterministic decision to measure a specific physical eigenstate, structures a mythogene through a revelatory delving into his inner self. 2. The mythogene has two components: one is experiential, representing the diachronic aquarium, while the other is of a longing pertaining to the synchronic quantum world. 3. The mythogene is stored in the brain forming a holographic image of the physical system it intends to observe (create). Observing is tantamount to creating a physical system; it is effected by the human consciousness and the stochastic wave function in the quantum world. 4. This holographic image, which is a virtual force field, sends a virtual messenger particle over the uncertainty barrier. The particle is of low energy and has, therefore, enough time to clone a virtual stochastic wave function which is the virtual holographic image of the physical system it intends to create.

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The communication between the cloned virtual image and the original function is by a resonance dynamic (described earlier). This is shown graphically as follows:

Fig. 3.1 A “minuet” of resonances

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This very same resonance helps the virtual messenger particle to bounce back over the uncertainty barrier to the diachronic aquarium. 6. The creative operation is finally completed with the original wave function collapsing into a physical eigenstate, a measurement to be replicated by all other observers in the classic world. It must be obvious by now that there are life-forms, objects, spacetime, and locality in the diachronic aquarium, whereas there are only stochastic wave functions, implicate orders, and energy fields with wave packets (particles) in the quantum world. It is noteworthy that Bohm hypothesized that the eigenstate of a particle is catalyzed by a hidden variable. The hidden variable guides, so to speak, the particle to materialize as an eigenstate in the classic world. We have a similar virtual guiding wave cloned by a virtual particle after it jumps over the uncertainty barrier. The cloning is determined by the energy and amplitude of Schrödinger’s wave function. This received the information as to the eigenstate that it had to generate by the dynamic of resonance. Thus, an eigenstate of a particle is collapsed and it returns to the classic aquarium via the uncertainty barrier. A mytho-empirical depiction of the excursion of a mythogene over the uncertainty barrier is the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, or the Hymn of Jude Thomas, the Apostle in the Country of the Indian. The Hymn of the Pearl is a Hellenistic text from the third century CE.133 The protagonist prince wears the sacred gown and undergoes a revelation (ȖȞȠıȚȢ): And on the spot I remember that I was a child of kings and that my people demanded my freedom. I also remembered the pearl for which I had been sent on the mission to Egypt, And the fact that I had been coming against the fearsome dragon for booty. And I subdued it by calling out my father’s name. And I snatched the pearl, and turned to carry it away to my parents. … But I could not recall my splendor; For, it was a while I was still a boy and quite young that I had left it behind in my father’s palace. But when suddenly I saw my garment reflected as in a mirror, I perceived in it my whole self as well. And through it I recognized and saw myself. For, though we derived from one and the same we were partially divided; and then we were one, with a single form. Nay, also the treasurers who had brought the garment I saw as two beings, but there existed a single form in both,

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One single royal token consisting of two halves. And they had my money and wealth in their hands, and gave me my reward: The fine garment of bright colors, Which was embroidered with gold, precious stones, and pearls to give suitable impression. It was clasped at the collar, And the image of the King of Kings was (woven) all through it; Stones of lapis lazuli had been agreeably fixed to the collar. And I saw, in turn, that impulses of acquaintance (gnosis) were rippling throughout it. And that it was ready to utter discourse.134

Following this inner revelation, a single form-structure was formed. Although it was partially divided signifying the dual nature of the mythogene, it was united in one structure. The revelation of the protagonist is that his soul is part of the Divine father: that the consciousness of his soul is a reflection of the Divinity enables him to be ready for a discourse with the sacred realm (the clandestine quantum world).135 The protagonist was then supplied with a particle of light by his parents. The Hymn of Jude Thomas, the Apostle in the Country of the Indians says: My parents equipped me with supplies and sent me out from the East, our country, on a mission. From the wealth of their treasuries they have a great cargo, Which was light, so that I could carry it by myselfThe cargo was gold from the high country, silver plate of the great treasuries, Emerald jewels of India, and agates of Kosan; And they armed me with steel. They took away from me the jewel-studded garment shot with gold That they had made out of love for me And the robe of yellow color (tailored) to my size. But they made an agreement with me, Impressed it on my mind, (so that) I might (not) forget it, and said, “If you go down to Egypt and bring from there the one pearl, Which resides there near the ravenous dragon, You shall put (back) on that jewel-studded garment and the robe, which you like; And you shall be a herald for our kingdom, along with your wellremembered Brother.”136

The protagonist cloned himself into his twin brother Jesus, which is the mytho-empiricism of the virtual particle “stealing over” the uncertainty barrier and cloning a wave interacting by a resonance with the original

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Schrödinger wave function. This is the acquaintance (gnosis) cited earlier in the text. The transmission of information by the cloned wave function to the original wave function (by the dynamic of resonance) is about the nature of the eigenstate that the wave function should produce. Once the mission is completed, the protagonist remembers that he has to return to the other side of the uncertainty barrier, together with his prized pearl, the eigenstate of our concept of a particle. “I snatched the pearl, and turned to carry it away to my parents… so that with my gifts and the pearl I might make an appearance before the king himself.”137 Mission accomplished, and the protagonist deserved a hero’s welcome. We shall demonstrate in the following sections the manner in which the mythogenic interpretation may be integrated in six current interpretations of quantum mechanics. Bohr’s Complementarity138 The essence of Bohr’s interpretation is the complementarity between the measured and the measurer. Hence, there is no independent quantum state which is objective and separable from the state of the measuring apparatus. Since the measurement apparatuses are actually macroscopic systems, the states of which are classically describable, the existence of the quantum state depends on observation processes actually effected in the classic world. Therefore, according to Bohr, there is no structured existence which is separate and independent of the relationship between the measured and the measurer. Thus physical phenomena, according to Bohr, are exclusively relations between the quantum state function and classical apparatuses.139 Bohr regards that the measurement process as a complementarity between the indeterministic human consciousness and the stochastic wave function. It is a creation ex nihilo by a spiritual energy interacting with a probabilistic blurred function of potentialities. However, there are some drawbacks in Bohr’s interpretation. Bohr foregoes the existence of objective quantum properties in the description of physical reality. He also does not describe the dynamics by which the relationship between the observed and the observer effect a definite physical state as perceived by actual observation, as he did not present a quantum theory of measurement. It is therefore suggested by the mythogenic interpretation that the virtual particle directed by the mythogenic force field casually links between the macroscopic brain and the quantum system measured and thus bridges over the disconnectedness in Bohr’s interpretation. We hypothesize

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that the virtual particles are classic by their nature. Hence, they are not in superpositions. Yet the interaction between the virtual particles and the quantum system measured occurs by means of the mythogenic force field and the cloning process. This interaction takes place in the brain of the observer. The quantum state function as interpreted by Bohr represents the probability to find the system measured in a certain state. This state is determined by the correlation between the virtual particle and the Schrödinger wave function which is generated and cloned by the mythogenic field. In this manner Bohr’s claim that no quantum state exists independently of the actual observation can be interpreted coherently, where no problem of quantum measurement is still outstanding. Von Neumann’s Collapse Theory The conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics as formulated by Von Neumann140 displays fundamental problems regarding the completeness-of-measurement. These problems reveal a basic inconsistency in the Von Neumann theory of quantum measurement when regarded as a unified physical theory, i.e., a theory which describes consistently the time development of physical systems, measuring apparatuses and canonical observers. Von Neumann describes the evolution of the quantum system with time as continuous, deterministic and obeying the Schrödinger linear equation of motion, whereas the measurement interaction, according to Von Neumann, obeys the discontinuous and indeterministic axiom of measurement of wave function reduction. Hence, the measurement chain is disrupted into the observed system which obeys the Schrödinger equation and the canonical observer, which obeys the stochastic process of the collapse of the state function postulated by the axiom of measurement. Von Neumann argues that the boundary between the quantum system measured and the canonical observer can be shifted arbitrarily along the measurement chain. However, this assumption of arbitrary real projections of the Schrödinger state is problematic. Cutting the measurement chain between the measuring apparatus and the quantum system, and cutting it between the observer and the measuring apparatus, have in principle, under any collapse interpretation, incompatible observable consequences which effect inconsistent predictions of quantum theory; hence, Von Neumann’s interpretation is incomplete. A mythogenic complement to this theory should provide an exact model which can explain the disruption between observer systems and quantum systems, and describe the dynamics of the state function collapse. We propose that the virtual

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particles and the quantum wave function actually correlate in the course of observation by means of the mythogenic force field and the cloning process. Hence the state function reduction, however interpreted, must occur exactly at this stage and location of the process. It seems that Von Neumann had two alternatives for interpreting the projection postulate. One is that the state function reduction corresponds to an actual physical collapse. In this case we claim that the Schrödinger equation of motion is indeed altered when the virtual mythogenic and the quantum wave function interact. The second alternative is that the projection postulate corresponds to a subjective perception of the observer. This enables us to understand the flexibility of the boundary between the measurer and measured systems, which, according to Von Neumann, can be shifted arbitrarily along the measurement chain. In this alternative we postulate that the Von Neumann projection is virtual. Namely that the Schrödinger equation always holds true in its description of the time evolution of the quantum wave function. However, the mythogenic particles associated with the observer’s subjective memory state are never superposed. Therefore they determine the nature of the observer’s perception. Hence, albeit the Schrödinger state of the quantum system is not reduced, the observer’s perception corresponds to a virtual eigenstate of the observable measured. This is brought about as a result of the virtual collapse of the cloned hermetic wave field which is coupled to the Schrödinger wave function corresponding to a definite awareness of the observer. Wigner’s Consciousness The basic claim of Wigner is that the collapse of the quantum state function is real and is effected by the consciousness of the observer.141 This means, taking Schrödinger’s notorious cat, that the death or viability of the animal is determined by the actual observation of the experimenter examining the condition of the cat. Schrödinger’s equation of motion is therefore assumed to be valid for all physical processes which render quantum states in general to be superposed. Hence all physical objects including the brain of the observer are in superposition until this awareness reduced the quantum mechanical wave function into a definite eigenstate of the observable measured. Wigner’s stance is that the quantum reality described by linear superposition of states encounters the consciousness of the observer by exposure to his intentional awareness. This brings about a reduction of the Schrödinger state function. Yet Wigner does not specify the dynamics of

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the interaction between consciousness and quantum systems. This can be explained by the mythogenic interpretation as follows: it is suggested that the measuring apparatuses – brains and sense organs of observers – are quantum mechanical systems. The preferred states for the virtual state function are stipulated to be brain states defined in position space. In this we concur with Ghirardi et al, who investigated this issue and concluded that different awareness states correspond to different position states of an ensemble of particles in the brain which are macroscopically distinguished. The preferred positions are determined according to the mythogenic interpretation by the position of the virtual particle in the final mythogenic force field which might not be necessarily macroscopic. Unlike Wigner, we claim a virtual collapse. As mentioned earlier, we assume that the virtual collapse occurs by an interaction of the wave function and the mythogenic force field. This virtual dynamic effects only the mythogenic field which clones the Schrödinger wave function in position space, but leaves the latter in its superposed state. We will discuss this cloning dynamic in the following section on Bohm’s theory. Thus doing, we add universality and completeness to Wigner’s theory. Bohm’s Pilot Wave Theory The basic assumption of the pilot wave interpretation142 is that the world consists of a state given by the quantum mechanical wave function and it is assumed that the world’s wave function evolves according to the Schrödinger equation. The Schrödinger wave function presents a real objective field which propagates linearly in the configured space. It is stipulated that the positions in space possess definite values at any time and can change according to given circumstances. Hence Bohm’s model is deterministic, objective and depends on the initial values of the world’s wave function and on the eigenstate of the position variables. Bohm’s model postulates an assumption of initial conditions Using Bell’s model143 of the pilot wave theory, it can be shown that Bohm’s measurement theory stipulates that any measurement of an observable is in fact a position measurement. Bohm denotes the stochastic potentiality of the quantum world as an implicate order.144 The world of tables, whiskey, and the Mona Lisa in the classic world is the explicate order of the senses. Bohm’s implicate order is of course similar to Schrödinger’s wave function, but the two are also different. For Bohm, the implicate order is rather a hidden variable or a guiding wave which carries on it a wavepacket which is the explicate particle. The idea

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that a particle is a trembling wavepacket is not new. Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie received a Nobel Prize for it. Bohm, however, utilized it to forgo the “collapse” of the wave function. Since both the wave and the packet of waves (particle) guided by it are transformed from the implicate order in the quantum world to the explicate order in the diachronic aquarium. Bohm also relies on the hologram in his interpretation of quantum mechanics.145 What is of prime importance to us is that the holographic image presented by the Mythogenic Structure to the uncertainty barrier is virtual and can send a virtual particle to the quantum world which can jump over the uncertainty barrier and back without violating the uncertainty relationship. Moreover, the particle sent by the holographic image has all the parts of the whole image. It can, therefore, convey fully to the implicate order in the quantum world what object to form explicately in the classic aquarium. We see thus that Bohm’s interpretation is dual, since it postulates both quantum Schrödinger waves and classical particles which coexist in physical reality. Therefore, when the final result of the measurement is obtained, the quantum states still remain superposed. The mythogenic complement to the pilot wave model however, stipulates that Bohm’s point particles are nonmaterial – they are virtual and are associated with the observer’s consciousness. This assumption is supported by the fact that in Bohm’s theory the hidden variables can be interpreted as possessing a single necessary role which is to determine the results of position measurements as experienced by canonical observers. It is assumed that the correlation between the virtual particles and the quantum wave function is dynamically mediated by a mythogenic holographic force field which is produced by a cloning process. A description of the dynamics follows here. During the interaction between the brain of the observer and the quantum system, the mythogenic force field correlates with the quantum wave function of the measured system. The correlation is effected linearly by the Schrödinger equation of motion. This means that the interaction between the mythogenic force field and the quantum waves is effected by sending a particle from its holographic image which depicts the physical system the measurer chooses to observe. The particle wavepacket which possesses holographically the whole holographic image of the mythogene clones a wave field which interacts by a resonance with the wave function or implicate order and transmit thereby the information as to the physical eigenstate desired by the observer. The final result is a collapse of the

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quantum state function. Unlike the non-collapse Bohmian pilot wave dynamic, the mythogenic interpretation is nonlocal and encounters invariance problems. However, since the nonlocality is effected by virtual holographic particles, relativistic problems do not arise. No Collapsing Theories, Relative States, Splitting Worlds and Many Minds The essential premises of Everett’s interpretation are146 that the quantum wave function provides a complete description of nature and the Schrödinger linear equation of the quantum state always holds true. Consequentially, reduction of the wave function occurs. The quantum state is never altered because the Schrödinger equation is never suspended. Philosophically the many worlds, many minds interpretations of quantum mechanics lead us to solipsism. How is it possible that the world soul, the Nous, has chosen our body to be the channel of awareness of all the universe? The solipsistic many worlds-many minds answer is that I am the chosen Avatar, the anointed channel of awareness for this world only. For the other worlds, there are an infinite number of them, there are other avatars and other solipsistic anointed. However the communication between the solipsistic chosen is by Buberian dialogue: the cumulative amplitudes of the mind waves effect an I-Thou dialogue, whereas the mutually canceling amplitudes of mind waves create the leveling interference of an I-It petrification. The solipsistic dilemma is still insoluble: why has my brain been chosen to infer the many other worlds and other minds which reign as actual avatars in their respective universes? We suggest that we drop this question unless we wish to end up in the Ypsilanti Insane asylum, sitting in a room sewing mail bags as described in Milton Rokeach’s extraordinary study, The Three Christs of Ipsylanti which describes identity and belief through the eyes of three psychiatric patients who identified themselves as Christ. There are two other problems in Everett’s interpretation. First, a preferred basis for the interaction between the system and the observer is not postulated. Hence the branching structure cannot be well defined. The second is the probability rule. Everett and also DeWitt and Graham147 assigned a measure function to every branch of the final superposition, and then identified sets of maverick branches of total measure zero, with zero probability (i.e. with non-existing branches). This is untenable because the Schrödinger equation is deterministic and therefore, the probability that every branch, including maverick branches of zero measure occurs, equals certainty.

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An ontological ambiguity is extant in Everett’s theory of measurement in its default to clarify the identity of the observer. The coexistence of the branches in the final superposition implied by the linearity of the Schrödinger equation entails the possible results of the measurement being observed by the same observer. DeWitt tries to emerge from this paradox by postulating a splitting worlds interpretation (SWI) of Everett’s theory.148 The substantial interpretive argument of the SWI is that measurement,-like interactions, generate a process of splitting worlds. This process is interpreted as being a well-defined physical event which occurs in the objective physical reality. The Schrödinger superposition of the branches obtained after observation is stipulated to describe distinct worlds existing simultaneously in the physical reality, which correspond separately to the branches defined in the final superposition. Thus the universal state function developed by the Schrödinger equation is meant to describe the characteristics of world histories. Hence after a generic measurement a copy of the observer (and of the apparatus) exists in every separate world. A different result of the measurement is recorded in the memory of each copy of the observer because brain states are correlated with orthogonal eigenstates of the observable measured. The linearity of the Schrödinger equation requires subsequent measurements to agree with this result. Consequentially, the simultaneous existing observers in the separate DeWitt worlds associated with different experiences are, by definition, non-identical. Hence a single identity of the observer does not survive the measurement. However, the SWI can be shown to be wanting and incoherent. The linear Schrödinger equation does not describe any physical event which might correspond to the actual physical process of world-splitting. Therefore, this theory actually stipulates irreducible physical development of worlds: Process 1 This is the world splitting process, generated by measurement-like interactions at some indefinite stage of the measurement chain, it is stipulated to be instantaneous and nonlocal. Process 2 Normal physical interactions which develop linearly satisfying the Schrödinger equation are stipulated to describe the internal development of DeWitt worlds if and only if measurement-like interactions do not occur.

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The main argument of the SWI is that the Schrödinger equation, being linear, predicts that in every separate world the observer perceives an effective collapse of the state function. This follows from linearity despite the fact that the Schrödinger equation is inconsistent with the axiom of measurement of state function reduction. World-splitting is therefore physically equivalent to the conventional collapse axiom: the subjective experience of the observer on every separate world entails that the Schrödinger state function is reduced into an eigenstate of the observable measured. This misleading perception experienced by the observer implies that in a spin measurement for example, the observer can be aware of neither a world splitting nor any self-branching process. If the world-splitting process is interpreted as a real physical event, an alteration of the Schrödinger equation and the principle of superposition is necessary. The resemblance to the conventional collapse theory is thus evident. The SWI does not specify why the interactions between observers, measuring apparatuses and quantum systems, split the world and quantum interactions do not. Consequentially, the world-splitting process is undefined. The problems of the preferred basis and the role of the quantum mechanical probabilities in Everett’s theory are still extant in DeWitt’s interpretation. Albert and Loewer continue Everett’s line of thought by introducing the Many Minds interpretation.149 Their main postulates are as follows: There is a preferred set of brain states of a canonical observer which is a subset of a complete basis. Every ĭk is associated with an infinite set of minds in the corresponding mental state Mx which are stipulated to satisfy the following critical rules: 1. Mind states are completely determined by brain states so that the mental states Mx are supervenient on brain states. 2. Minds do not alter the Schrödinger state function. 3. Minds are not quantum mechanical systems and therefore do not satisfy the principle of linear superposition of states. 4. The time evolution of the total set of minds associated with the brain of the actual observer is deterministic, because the total mental state is completely determined by the total brain state of the observer, which satisfies the Schrödinger equation. 5. The state development of a single mind satisfies the probability rule that a single mind will correspond to a definite branch of the total superposition is proportional to the Everett measure. Hence the probability that a single mind will correspond to a

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maverick branch inconsistent with quantum mechanics converges to zero. Nevertheless, maverick minds exist. Albert and Loewer manage to solve the problems of Everett’s interpretation involving a necessary preferred basis and the meaning of the quantum mechanical probabilities. The Albert and Loewer interpretation, however, does not provide a detailed description of the casual dynamics by which mind states supervene on brain states. Also, if minds are introduced into quantum mechanics, which is innovative in itself, it is necessary to provide a precise description of its interaction with physical states. This is essential as Albert and Loewer assume that minds do not obey the quantum mechanical laws. If minds are not stipulated to obey the linear Schrödinger equation and the supposition principle, then it is essential to specify exactly by which dynamics the casual correlation between mind states and brain states is generated. Another criticism is that the Many Minds interpretation does not solve the problem of the observer’s identity extant in Everett’s theory. If the observer is associated with an infinite set of minds there is no well-defined observer with a clear and distinct identity. Another drawback of the Many Minds interpretation is that it succumbs to the pitfalls of solipsism: According to the Many Minds interpretation, a generic measurement results in a superposition of states each of which is correlated with a definite mind state. Each mind perceives itself to be unique despite the fact that all the other minds coexist with it because it cannot be aware of the other minds corresponding to the other existing branches in the final superposition. This follows from the linearity of the Schrödinger equation and from the fact that the Many Minds interpretation does not postulate an alternation of the Schrödinger wave function. This makes for the solipsism of the single observer and for a paradox of an infinite number of minds each claiming a uniqueness of perception. Hence each mind is wrong about the observed physical state of the quantum system observed, since it is in general in a superposition of states whereas every single mind perceives an eigenstate of the observable measured. Each mind is also mistaken about the uniqueness of itself since by simple introspection it cannot perceive the other existing minds. The absurd of the solipsistic Many Minds may be resolved by forfeiting the assumption of an infinite set of minds coexisting simultaneously. The mythogenic interpretation thus proposes to assume the existence of a single conscious mind which exists independently of the universal state function. This conscious mind operates by means of a mythogenic force field and virtual particles expedited into the quantum world. It is suggested that a maieutic interaction in the Socratic sense occurs between the

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observer’s single mind and the Schrödinger state function of the quantum system. This interaction is mediated by the mythogenic force field and its holographic image of the desired physical state. Then a virtual particle would be sent over the uncertainty barrier, which is stipulated to clone the internal structure of the quantum wave function to evolve linearly according to the Schrödinger equation and interact with it by a resonance dynamic. However, since the virtual particles do not obey the superposition principle, this maieutic interaction brings about an effective collapse of the mythogenic field into an eigenstate of the observable measured. When it is complete, the virtual particle is correlated into a single branch of the superposition, corresponding to a definite single eigenstate of the observable measured. This correspondence effects a cognitive collapse, which is virtual, since the other branches in the quantum state albeit existing are totally ineffective. The collapse of the mythogenic force field is virtual since it does not effect the Schrödinger state of the system nor the brain state of the observer. The reduced correlation of the mythogenic force field with a single branch of the final superposition corresponds to a definite mind state of the observer. It is caused by a virtual particle that is expedited deterministically by the mediation of the mythogenic force field to generate a virtual collapse of the mythogenic force field into a definite eigenstate of the observable measured. The other existing branches of the Schrödinger state are therefore ineffective since they are not correlated with any definite state of the virtual particle. Hence, these ineffective branches cannot correspond to any definite mind states, since mind states are generated only by the maieutic triggering of the virtual particle. Consequentially, this complementary alternative to the Many Minds interpretation encounters neither the problems of solipsism nor the problem of the identity of the observer. The preferred states of the observation are determined by the natural possible states of the virtual particles. The probability rule assigns the quantum mechanical probability that the virtual particle will be finally coupled to a definite brain state of the observer. However, the virtual particle directed by the mythogenic force field into a single branch of the final superposition actually dents the Schrödinger wave function so that the results of all subsequent measurements are consistent. This denting of the quantum state by the virtual particle is identical to an effective collapse.

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Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber’s Spontaneous Localization The GRW’s Spontaneous Localization Theory150 introduces nonlinear and stochastic elements in the dynamics of quantum theory which is especially effective in quantum mechanical measurements. GRW propose a Gaussian which spontaneously multiplies the quantum state function and causes thereby a reduction of the state function. Therefore practically spontaneous reductions occur at the vicinity of a point x where the quantum mechanical probability is most dense, and when the pointer states are macroscopically distinguishable. GRW suggest a Gaussian where xĶ is randomly chosen, and the width of the Gaussian a is defined as a new constant of nature. The mechanism by which the spontaneous collapse theory solves the problem of quantum measurement is as follows. Consider a quantum system initially prepared in a superposition with equal weights. Before interaction, the composite state of the apparatus and the system is a separable state denoted by the apparatuses’ pointer. The composite state function of the system and apparatus is transformed by the Schrödinger-like equation into a nonseparable superposition. In the instant that the interaction is complete before reduction the composite state can be expanded where the apparatus and physical states reach position eigenstates of some pointer observables corresponding to macroscopically distinguishable pointer positions. GRW claim that the pointer, being a macroscopic rigid object, consists of N microscopic particles. Therefore, the superposition can be expanded to include the individual states of the N particles of the pointer and the physical system, and following from the linearity of the Schrodinger equation, denotes an entangled state in which neither the N particles positions nor the state of the system measured are separable. GRW argue that if one of the particles in this entangled state suffers a spontaneous reduction, then the proposed transformation equation generates a reduction of the total state function into one branch. The GRW collapse process is stochastic. The probability that the entangled state will collapse into the specific branch and that a single particle will be spontaneously localized is identical to the quantum mechanical probabilities of the collapse of a single particle in the apparatus pointer triggers the required collapse of the entire state function of the pointer and also of the reduction of the wave function of the measured system. The probability for a spontaneous of a single particle is proportional to the number of particles in the pointer. Since the pointer is always macroscopic, the probability for the total state reduction is practically one. It should be stressed that the

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spontaneous collapse of a single particle is a trigger mechanism of the state reduction of the whole pointer.151 There are, however, some problems in the GRW interpretation of the quantum measurement, which can be elucidated as follows: The problem of the tails of the wave function The spontaneous reduction of the quantum state function is effected, according to GRW, through a Gaussian. According to GRW, the final outcome of the measurement is represented by a position wave function with a very narrow peak corresponding to almost a single point in space. However, this wave function possesses tails which converge to zero, but never reach it. Hence, the final wave function of the pointer assigns high probability of the pointer being in one position state, but nevertheless allocates low probability of the pointer being in another position. Consequentially when the measurement is complete, the pointer is not reduced entirely into a definite position state. The final wave-function of the pointer, albeit practically reduced into almost a definite state, corresponds to a superposition of position states. Therefore, since the quantum wave function of the pointer is spreading, despite the GRWcollapse, a state reduction into a definite pointer position is never achieved. Therefore, the problem of quantum measurement still remains.152 Nonlocality According to the GRW, the spontaneous collapse mechanism is nonlocal. Hence, in a spin measurement of a neutron for example, there is a non-zero probability that immediately after the interaction neither the neutron nor any particle of the pointer will undergo a spontaneous reduction. However the neutron, independent of its spatial separation from the pointer, can still effect a state reduction of the pointer as a result of a possible spontaneous collapse of the neutron. This nonlocal effect is brought about by the quantum-mechanical entanglement of the state function initiated by the interaction between the neutron and the pointer as described by the Schrödinger equation. Therefore the GRW solution to the measurement problem is that the spontaneous collapse mechanism, is in principle, nonlocal.

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Disjointed Dynamics The problem of causality which plagues all collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics is especially rife in the GRW interpretation. GRW do not provide a casual chain leading from the triggering of the spontaneous random localization of a single particle to the final reduction of all the particles in the pointer. The GRW theory envisages, by the linearity of the Schrödinger equation, that the state functions of the measured neutron and the pointer (before reduction) are entangled. This means that the state of the neutron after the interaction is linearly correlated with the position states of all the particles in the pointer. Hence, a spontaneous state reduction of a randomly chosen particle is supposed by GRW, to initiate a chain reaction by which all the particles in the pointer, and also the measured neutron, will undergo a state reduction. This chain, however, does not constitute a casual process. Quantum entanglement in itself is not sufficient to produce casual dynamics. The mythogenic interpretation tries to overcome this problem of dynamics, described as follows. We assume a measurement interaction between a pointer of an apparatus and a quantum system. This interaction obeys the Schrödinger wave equation and evolves linearly into a superposition of states. Unlike the GRW interpretation, we do not assume any stochastic state reduction at this stage, despite that the systems involved thus far in the process may be macroscopic, and the superposed wave function of the pointer may correspond to macroscopically distinguishable position states. During the measurement process a coupling of the pointer variable and some memory observables of the observer’s brain occurs. This interaction develops linearly, so satisfying the Schrödinger equation. The final result at this stage of the measurement chain is a non-separable superposition describing definite correlations between the variables of the memory observables of the observer’s brain and the pointer position. We assume an infinite number of degrees of freedom in the observer’s brain, which correlate with the pointer and the quantum system. Each degree of freedom corresponds to a brain state and generates a mythogenic force field. After the interaction of the brain with the pointer we obtain infinite mythogenic wave fields which are correlated to distinct, albeit superposed, states of the pointer as described by the different branches of the Schrödinger superposed equation. Thus, after the interaction of the brain variables with the pointer, the mythogenic wave fields associated with every separate degree of freedom of the brain clone the form of the superposed Schrödinger state function. The mythogenic waves and their adjoined holographic image are therefore superposed after the interaction,

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and hence possess the same probability density as given by the quantum wave function. We assume that the time evolution of the cloned mythogenic brain states satisfies the stochastic GRW-transformation equation. That means that each mythogenic wave field undergoes a spontaneous state reduction. Since the number of mythogenic wave fields in the cloned Schrödinger superposition is infinite, the collapse of the total state is certain. The randomly chosen mythogenic wave field which undergoes a spontaneous collapse generates a triggering mechanism to produce a casual chain reaction of state reductions. Each collapsing mythogenic field emits a virtual particle which serves as a maieutic messenger. In another mythogenic field the emitted virtual particle triggers a state reduction, which in turn emits another virtual particle to cause the collapse of the next coupled mythogenic field. The end result of the process is a real collapse of the cloned mythogenic force field into preferred brain states, and a virtual collapse of the Schrödinger wave function corresponding to the pointer (and the quantum system) superposition. Thus the state collapse is cognitive and does not pertain to physical reality. Yet the virtual particle directed by the mythogenic force field dents the Schrödinger wavefunction and therefore generates an effective collapse which warrants a consistency of subsequent measurements. In this manner we attempt to solve the problem of the dynamics of the collapse mechanism in the GRW interpretation, but cannot solve the problems of the tails of the wave function and nonlocality. Our discussion does not include the currently topical string and M theories of quantum mechanics as these are purely abstract and seem to be hovering way out of any empirical anchor. In conclusion, the mythogenic complement suggested here to the interpretations of the quantum theory of measurement is realistic in the sense that it postulates a dynamic and continuous chain of measurement from the quantum system to the human brain. The physical interactions in this chain always obey the Schrödinger linear equation. The sole entity existing in physical reality is the quantum wave function. Virtual cognitive processes of mythogenic fields and virtual particles are stipulated to produce the observed experimental results. Hence there is an intrinsic dualism in the world between physical reality, which is quantum-aligned and the cognitive reality in the human psyche, which is classically aligned. The purpose of the mythogenic interpretation suggested here is to provide a casual dynamic which connects the quantic and the psychic realities. It is clear that the physical reality is a blurred, entangled, and nondescript turbulence whereas the psychic world is an orderly construct which is cognitively well structured

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into the realm of classic appearances. The connection between the two realms, which is the major issue in physics and the cognitive sciences, has been tackled by our present introduction of the mythogenic virtual processes. Pure quantum mechanics cannot achieve definite results of measurements because of the linear nature of the Schrödinger wave equation. However, experience shows that we do perceive definite subjective validity. Therefore the virtual collapse of the Schrödinger state function that comes about by the reduction of the mythogenic field into definite and preferred states of awareness provides the missing link in the chain of a casual explanation of phenomena. The mythogenic interpretation suggests that cognitive processes within the human brain are initiated by quantic processes which collapse virtually into classic phenomena. Therefore, it is assumed that the human brain obeys the quantum mechanical laws. Definite states of awareness, according to this interpretation, are the result of effective quantum state reductions. The collapse of the wave function effected virtually by the collapse of the mythogenic field is therefore assumed to be the cause of the existence of definite states of awareness as experienced by human observers. The superposed mythogenic field before the state reduction can be interpreted as describing a potentiality of cognitive well-defined states. It represents, therefore, a real psychic propensity.

Relativity and Quantum Mechanics After an early dinner on a well aged T-bone steak and a swim in the warm water of the Mediterranean, the author relaxed listening to glorious Italian Baroque music. This activity would have been impossible without the diachronic aquarium which is formed by the interaction of the human consciousness with the quantum world, and by the mediation of the Mythogenic Structure. The special and general theories of relativity relate to the diachronic aquarium, but not to the synchronic quantum world. Hence the rift and discord between the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. The constant efforts to synchronize these two theoretical paradigms are problematic and mostly, unsuccessful. Our stance that the Mythogenic Structure bonds these two worlds seems more viable as the mythogene contains components of both the classic diachronic aquarium and the quantum world. The special and general relativity theories are intra-classic paradigms: special relativity describes how bodies approaching the speed of light appear to an observer within the diachronic aquarium to shrink and its temporal dimension to slow until reaching the speed of light,

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which is the aquarium’s container. Space disappears and time stops altogether. General relativity helps shape the contours of the diachronic aquarium by its gravity-based curving dynamics. All the manifestations of gravity effect the curvature of space and hence, the contours of the spatiotemporal aquarium. Finally, the general theory of relativity explains the curvature of light and hence, the formation of the outer boundary of the diachronic aquarium by the speed of light. It amounts to the curvature of our diachronic aquarium being effected, according to the general theory of relativity, by gravity. This makes gravitation an essence of spatiotemporality.153 Hawking carries the general theory of relativity further: “…gravity curls up space-time so that it has beginning and an end.”154 This vindicates our stance that the curvature of space-time due to gravity structures our finite diachronic aquarium. Hence gravity, in a Munchausen-like way, shapes the arena in which it acts.155 This, with the claim that human consciousness is an active partner in forming physical reality, joins the general theory of relativity and the anthropic principle as partners in creating our finite spatio-temporal abode. A logical step further would be to regard our spatio-temporal aquarium as shaped by gravitational fields.156 Finally, space and time are the “water” of our diachronic aquarium. Life-forms and objects as we know them cannot exist outside the boundaries of the speed of light, which is the container of our universe. Geometry used to explain the closed universe was formulated by Riemann in the mid-nineteenth century. His non-Euclidean methods were suitable to the general theory of relativity as they traced the curvature of space related to gravitation. The so-called Riemann sphere, which is an ideal type space-time projected twister space, describes our diachronic aquarium bounded by the speed of light.157 The constancy of this boundary is also attested to by the fact that all photons, particles of light, fly 300,000 km per second. The general Theory of Relativity and Riemann’s curved geometry explain the formation of our diachronic aquarium by gravity. Also, as gravity and acceleration are isomorphic, massive rotating objects like stars, wrap around them surrounding space-time. This “frame dragging”158 is another dynamic which helps to construct the diachronic aquarium. The creation myth in the first chapter of Genesis is, indeed, a mythoempirical basis for the diachronic aquarium bound by the speed of light. The first creation was Light, Fiat Lux, the basic container of the universe. Within the universe are heaven, earth, water, the heavenly bodies, all the other spatial objects serving as a breeding medium for all the life-forms, and man – the atmospheric observer made to contain in his consciousness

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the image of God. The changing of night into day, the changing seasons, and the passing of years provided the temporal dimension so that the diachronic aquarium serves as the finite, enclosed abode of the universe, its objects, and life-forms. We propose a rather short and inconclusive journey into cosmology to account for the structure and content of our finite spatio-temporal aquarium. Let us begin with the Big Bang. According to the spatially closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model of the universe, which suits our present purposes, the Big Bang did not start at one point. It actually created space like an expanding balloon, with all the points on the balloon distancing themselves from one another.159 The expansion of this closed universe continued until it collapsed again into a space-time singularity. The relationship between the Big Bang (the birth of the universe) and the second law of thermodynamics is convoluted and riddled with theoretical problems.160 Suffice it to say that if we adopt the Friedmann-RobertsonWalker model of the closed universe (which we do), the low entropy at the Big Bang and its increase with the expansion of the closed quantum points to the asymmetrical arrow of time. We also have a hunch that in the beginning, the closed universe was quite uniform – at least in its early stages.161 Stephen Weinberg offers a celebrated hypothetical account as to the development of the universe in the early stages of its genesis.162 The first frame, the emerging universe, is 100,000 million degrees Kelvin hot. The most abundant particles are the electron with its antiparticle, the positron, and the massless particles: the photon, which is the carrier of light; the electromagnetic force created 1011 seconds after the Big Bang; the neutrons, which are produced by radioactive radiation, and the antineutrons, their anti-particles. In the first frame, the circumference of the universe is about four light years. In the second frame, our cloned universe is 30,000 million degrees Kelvin hot. The nuclear–particles ratio is about 38% neutrons – a particle with a neutral charge – and 62% protons. At about 5x10-23 seconds from the creation of the universe, the quarks – the tiniest particles – are enclosed together with gluons, the carrier particles of the strong nuclear force into the confinement of the protons and neutrons. The third frame, 1.09 seconds after the creation of the universe, has a heat of 10,000 million degrees Kelvin. The decrease in temperature, density, and the increase of entropy, induce the neutrons to fly away from the gravitational field of the universe, already formed at time 10-43 seconds after the creation of the universe. In the fourth frame, the temperature of the universe is 3,000 million degrees Kelvin. The electrons, positrons, and their anti-particles, are

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starting to annihilate each other. Some of the protons and neutrons are bound by the gluons, the carrier particles of the strong nuclear force, into, as yet unstable nuclei of heavy hydrogen and deuterium. The most common carrier particle is the photon. At about 10-11 seconds the weak nuclear force in charge of radioactive decay with its carrier particles, the intermediate borons W, Z, become separate. The fifth frame has a heat of a billion degrees Kelvin. The electrons and positrons have all but disappeared through mutual annihilation. Now photons and neutrons are prevalent. The world has cooled down to such an extent that the nuclei of tritium and helium can hold fast without disintegrating. The last frame has a heat of “only” 300 million degrees Kelvin. Nuclear processes have stopped. Nuclear particles are now bound into helium, or free hydrogen, nuclei. After about 700,000 years, it is cool enough for electrons to join nuclei and form stable atoms. However, the lack of free electrons allows radiation to flood the universe. This decoupling of matter and radiation generates the stars and the galaxies of our closed universe. It took some 10,000 million years more for life-forms to populate the earth. Our mytho-empiricism is shown in Victor Weisskopf’s statement that in the beginning the universe was flooded with light.163 Fiat Lux is God’s initial decree preceding all creation in Genesis. He also points to light as the boundary of our closed aquarium. The big crunch is mytho-empiricized by the Nordic Ragna Rok and the Germanic Gotterdammerung, signifying the twilight of the Gods. This is the inevitable annihilation of the world: reversed and annihilated again da capo ad imfinitum. This, to be sure, is the pagan cyclic conception of cosmology and theogony, unlike the Judaic linear evolution of both God and the universe. The quantum world, with its wave function, superposition of states and implicate order, is a stochastic potential of nothingness as wholeness. There is nothing out there in the quantum world that is familiar. Early in the twentieth century in Göttingen, Max Born claimed that the Schrödinger probability function is a probability wave which “smears” out the stochastic probability of finding a particle over wide range of likelihoods.164 However, once a particle is observed and measured by a human consciousness, the probability wave collapses into an eigenstate of a particle; it “jumps over” to the classic world of our diachronic aquarium. Hence, as far as our classic world is concerned – where we exist in its spatio-temporal aquarium – the particle was created out of the nothingness of the wave function. What it amounts to is that the quantic synchronicity is a sui-generis dimension of being. We envisage five dimensions of being: the quantic synchronic “no time” and the four dimensions of

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diachronicity and, together with this, the three measures of space, the mytho-empiricism of creation. The mytho-empirical interpretation of the emanation of the temporal worlds by the later Kabbalist, Moshe Haim Luzzatto, is that God manifested himself in the upper world of atzilut (emanation) and the subsequent manifestation of the lower worlds was not out of chaos but out of the nothingness.165 This is in line with our explanation of quantum mechanics: the relationship between the nothingness of the wave function and the reflection of God, the world soul, in the consciousness of man collapses the stochastic wave function into a physical eigenstate. In Judaism, the quantum world with its synchronic nothingness, stochastic abstraction, and clandestine mysterious ineffability, is seen, mytho-empirically, to be the source, the origin, and the abode of the sacred. God is abstract, invisible and hidden. When Moses asked God “Show me… Thy glory,” the response of Divinity was “Thou cannot see my face, for man shall not see Me and live.”166 Man cannot perceive the sacred, the synchronic, the source of existence, or for that matter, the concealed wave function. The sacred God does not change. He is immutable: “For I the Lord change not.”167 Like the initial unbroken symmetry, the potential of everything. In Gnosis, the profane Demiourgos is characterized by profane temporality and is contrasted with the timeless and spaceless purity of the Ogdoad. Irenaeus says: When the Demiurge further wanted to imitate also the boundless, eternal, infinite and timeless nature of the upper Ogdoad (the original eight Aeons in the Pleroma), but could not express their immutable eternity, being as he was a fruit of defect, he embodied their eternity in times, epochs, and great numbers of years, under the delusion that by the quantity of times he could represent their infinity. Thus truth escaped him and he followed the lie. Therefore his work shall pass away when the times are fulfilled.”168

Likewise, Meister Eckhart, the Christian mystic, depicts Time as the most formidable barrier preventing man from searching for the timeless God. He says: “Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. But there is no greater obstacle than God to time. And not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections; not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time.”169 Eliade describes the extreme longing of the Yoga Sutras to reunite with the sacred timelessness:

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The method is to cast off from a precise instant of Time, the nearest to the present moment, and to retrace the Time backwards (pratiloman or ‘against the stream’) in order to arrive ad originem, the point where existence first ‘bursts’ into the world and unleashes Time. Then one rejoins that paradoxical instant before which Time was not, because nothing has been manifested… thereby one attains to the beginning of Time and enters the Timeless- the eternal present which precedes the temporal experience inaugurated by the ‘fall’ into human existence. In other words, it is possible, stating from any moment of temporal duration, to exhaust that duration by retracing its source and so come out into the Timeless, into eternity. But that is to transcend the human condition and regain the no-conditioned state, which precedes the fall into Time and the wheel of existence.170

Yet, the most lucid exposition of the difference between profane diachronicity and the sacred eternal synchronicity was presented by Plato: Now the nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fullness upon a creature was impossible. Whereof he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests [in] unity; and this image we call time. For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he ‘was’, he ‘is’, he ‘will be’, but the truth is that ‘is’ alone is properly attributed to him, and that ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause.171

The duality of the synchronic quantum aquarium world and the diachronic “classic” aquarium has a clear value judgment in Gnosis and most of the Kabbalist expositions. In Gnosis, the spatio-temporal world created by the vile Demiourgos, the Old Testament creator-God, is patently evil. In contrast, the synchronic alien world of ineffable light is good. The Kabbalist kelim, the concrete temporal vessels, are low in the neo-Platonic ladder of sanctity, whereas the Divine content of the vessels, light, is linear – much like the evolution of Schrödinger’s wave function. Moses Cordovero, the sixteenth century precursor of Lurianic Kabbala in Safed, is quite neo-Platonic in his approach to sanctity and vileness. He says: “There are those who ask: Purity and sanctity originate in the world of emanation (atzilut) so wherefrom do the evil shells (kellipot) and

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profanities originate? The truth is that in the world of emanation (atzilut) there cannot be any evil, but when the emanation continues and goes down it coagulates into refuse… when the emission continues it finally divides into purity and sanctity and waste and dross.”172 The interesting point here is that at the end of the emanation there was a dualistic division between purity and profanity. Mytho-empirically, this represents the synchronic sanctity and diachronic spatio-temporality. In Lurianic Kabbala, however, the dualism is clear, envisaged by its main exponents, Vital and Ibn Tabul: the iniquity was present in Divinity ab initio, and the cosmic cataclysm of the breaking of the vessels was intended to purge its dregs. Still, this dualism is monarchical as the presence of vileness in Divinity is expelled from it cathartically and infused in spatio-temporality. Man can then be exposed to both good and evil; he can indeterministically choose what is right and thus determine his moral rectitude. This is distinct from others who have chosen moral turpitude.173 We propose, however, a combined dualism and neo-Platonism in the Kabbala to account for good and evil in the process of emanation, and to provide a mytho-empirical anchor for the creation of the diachronic aquarium out of the synchronic stochastic potential of the quantum world. The scheme for this combination could be as follows: Sanctity Synapsis Worlds

Phases

emanation

Cosmic and divine evolution

atzilut Genesis

Zimsum

beriah

Contraction Creation

Quest

yezirah

Experience

Shevira Breaking

Tikkun

Praxis

Mending

Asiyyah

Profanity

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The continuum evades many of the conceptual and methodological problems. The changing proportions of good and evil, and sanctity and profanity that emerge in the descent of the continuum may complement the dualism and the gradual neo-Platonic transformation from good. At each pole of the continuum there is an essence, albeit minute, of the opposite pole. Thus the essence of both poles is represented on the continuum in increasing and decreasing portions, depending on whether one ascends or descends the continuum. In the middle, is the cataclysmic act of creation. This is the Kabbalistic breaking of the vessels and the Big Bang in cosmology. Both these events are triggered by our mythogene which contains both human consciousness as a reflection of the Divine presence, and the experiential existence of the here-and-now structured in the generative mythogene. This coupling of the quest for the unknown – representing the clandestine imperceptible quantum world – and the experiential perception of the hereand-now – our classic aquarium within the Mythogenic Structure – is crucial in our present context. The light which is the immutable boundary of the diachronic aquarium is perceived by the eye, as are most of the objects and life-forms in the aquarium. The clandestine sacred cannot, and should not, be perceived by the eye. We have already mentioned that in Judaism one cannot see God and remain alive. This is pagan and sacrilegious; İȚįȠȜȦȞ, idol, stems from İȚįȠȢ, to see. In Judaism, one hears the word of God, the ȜoȖos: “Hear O Israel, The Lord our God is one.”174 Yet both our metaphysical quests for the unknown (in our context, the synchronic quantum world and the perception of classic diachronicity) are structured within the generative mythogene. Hence the ȜoȖos, God’s word, as perceived by the human ear serves as the prime avenue of God’s refracting presence in man’s consciousness. This is complemented by the eye in perceiving the diachronic world within the Mythogenic Structure. Mytho-empirically the ear and the eye appear as motifs in Judaism and paganism. Sometime during the second millennium before the birth of Christ, a remarkable transformation occurred in the course of human religious consciousness which led to the birth of the Jewish religion. The exact historical circumstances of this transformation remain shrouded in speculation. The only known records of the birth and crystallization of the Jewish faith are the biblical books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The scarcity of precise, non-biblical documentation and archeological evidence related to the origins of the Jews in Egypt means that our information is drawn mainly from Egyptian mythology found primarily in coffin texts,175 pyramid texts,176 and the Book of the Dead.177 The Judaic

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mythologies may be found mostly in the books of Genesis and Exodus (and in their early hermeneutics, mostly Genesis Raba and Exodus Raba). In contrast to Egyptian documentation, which is considered reliable, some scholars deny even the possibility of historically verifying the Pentateuch, especially for Genesis and Exodus. Consequentially, there is no independent method of asserting the historical existence of Moses, Aaron, and the six hundred thousand slaves who victoriously revolted against the Pharaoh. Similarly, there is no way of ascertaining to which Pharaoh the book of Exodus refers during the violent afflictions allotted the Egyptians. On the other hand, Egyptian pyramids and sarcophagi texts are firmly anchored in historical periods and related to identifiable Egyptian kings. What are the intrinsic differences between the Jewish and Egyptian myths underlying our analysis? The Egyptian myths, in keeping with their concrete separant social character, record the images (hieroglyphs) of their various sacred texts on sarcophagi in the pyramids. The Book of the Dead is a collection of spells, which effect a transition from the world of the living to the world of the dead, in the West. Those who die pass to another dimension of being, to the domain of Osiris. Hieroglyphs are literally the sacred writings, and as such, are telltale evidence of the axial age, which marks the transition, according to Karl Jaspers, from the oral to the written tradition. It is crucial to note that the rendering of the various myths into written scripture is solidly anchored on historical occurrences and the reign of specific kings or dynasties. This is not so in the book of Exodus, as the Judaic social character shuns the making of graven images as proscribed in the Decalogue. The Pentateuch is the only tangible evidence of the life and times of the Jews under the leadership of Moses. The Logos, the words in the book, are the main asset of the Jew. Even though there is no independent documentation linking the book of Exodus with particular Egyptian dynasties or kings, no one doubts the unique influence of the Mosaic mythology on the formation of the Jewish social character. In a sense, the a-historicity of the Mosaic doctrine, Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh, the continuous present-future as the connotation of God (e.g., the Burning Bush), as Paul Tillich states, lends a timelessness to Judaism itself.178 The Jewish religion is thus free of the fetters of concrete history. Hence, it is still strong to this day, unlike other ethnic-based Mediterranean creeds. However, this very a-historicity of the Mosaic doctrine makes a viable historical comparison between Egyptian and Judaic mythology impossible. The concrete Egyptian culture is contrasted with the abstractness and universality of a book, which cannot be substantiated by monuments or any other historical anchor. This discrepancy reflects the essential difference

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between the Egyptian and Jewish cultures. Sight and observation is overwhelmingly important in the Egyptian religion. The eye of Horus appears to be a major underlying force within Egyptian religion. Hence, the predominant visual aspect of the Egyptian theology may be contrasted and compared with the auditory nature of perceiving the word and the sequences of written commandments characterizing the Mosaic God. We contend that Egyptian culture emphasizes the eye and symbols of light more than the ear and symbols of sound, and that the opposite is true for the Jewish religion. We say that at the basis of this difference lie two distinct cognitive attitudes towards the interface between the self, the environment, and transcendence. The visual orientation of the Egyptian social character versus the auditory orientation of the Jewish social character allows for significant differences in their cognitive styles and, consequently, in the essence of their cultural products. Let us now turn to the two great metaphors of Hebraic and Egyptian theology: sound and light. First, sound, like the Hebrew God, is clandestine. The very invisibility of its presence forces its followers to forsake, even obliterate, the constraints of concreteness, which the visual field enforces upon them. Second, sound is spatially pervasive. Unlike the visual image, which can be made to disappear from sight merely by turning the head or closing the eyes, sound is all around us phenomenologically pervading our being. Shutting out images is much easier than shutting out sounds. Like sound, the Hebrew God envelops the being of his believers. Adam and Eve and the prophet Jonah cannot hide themselves from God, because He is everywhere. Similarly, light plays a major role in the Egyptian religion, as a metaphor of Divinity. The great and unfathomable abyss between life and death, reality and transcendence, challenges each individual. Each society, with its associated culture and religion, must provide a satisfactory bridge over this abyss. It is significant to our thesis that the Egyptian religion gives meaning to the metamorphosis of life to death through the symbolism of light and darkness. The sun is life. Its rising symbolizes birth, its setting, death. As the sun rises again, life returns in the here-andnow; it “comes forth by day,” following a successful passage through darkness. Life is the presence of light. Death is its absence. Resurrection is the re-emergence of light. The two celestial luminaries, the sun and the moon, are symbolized as the two eyes of Horus that transcend the seemingly unbridgeable gap between light and darkness, life and death. The shocking metamorphosis of human beings into corpses is thus embodied by the transcendental face of Horus (the falcon-god), in which the sun and moon are symmetric partners. Indeed, it seems that the

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universal medium in Egyptian cosmology is made of light. Where there is darkness, one can neither walk nor act. The dead must be armed with the eye of Horus. According to the Book of the Dead, Horus, son of Osiris, participates in the reconstruction of his father’s body. Osiris has been murdered by Seth, and his corpse has been mutilated. During the process of reconstruction, Horus donates an eye to Osiris who, by eating it, is resurrected. This donation provides Osiris with the power to rule the afterworld. Thus, the eye of the living Horus contains the essence of eternal life. This myth was re-enacted in the funeral rites of Egyptian kings. During the ceremony, the new pharaoh, the deceased pharaoh’s son, makes a sacrifice, saying to his father, “What thou hast eaten is an eye; the body becomes filled with it. Thy son Horus separates himself from it for thee, so that thou mayest live thereby.”179 The importance of the eye to the dead is emphasized in an elaborated procedure called “the opening of the mouth and eyes,” which, according to several versions of the Book of the Dead, constitutes part of the funeral rite. During the ceremony, several rituals are preformed in an effort to open the eyes of the deceased so that he may see in the afterworld. In one part, grapes representing the eye of Horus, are placed in the deceased’s mouth so that he may “ingest” them. In other parts, an instrument, such as an iron needle or bolt, is used to open the eyes. The eyes of Horus not only mediate between life and afterlife, but also effect the very continuity of time, since the basic rhythm of Egyptian time is the daily alternation between light and darkness. Just as the eye of Horus stands for life, his tears which lubricate the eye signify moisture, the medium of Egyptian life. Seth, the Egyptian Weidergeist, stands for the dryness of the desert, the hell of aridity. The eye has to bathe in humidity in order to see, whereas desiccation stands for the lifelessness of Seth. Still, the eye of Horus effects a complementarity between life and death. Tears from the eye of Horus create humans and other life-forms, but the ureus-cobra, attached to Pharaoh’s crown, is a harbinger of death and destruction. The eye of Horus is instrumental for the coinsidentia oppositorum between life and death, through its complementarity with the waterless Seth. The eye covets what it sees. It strives to posses. Hence, the concrete, optic Egyptian culture legitimizes possession and endows it with a positive value judgment. In contrast, the tenth commandment proscribes the covetousness of the eye. This is in line with the Mosaic campaign against Egyptian concreteness and attachment to material possessions. The Mosaic

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aversion to possessions relates also to the nomadic lifestyle of a Bedouin people, where too many chattels are inconvenient. One could hypothesise that Moses saw the forty years of wandering in the desert as a period of conditioning for the Jews; a time to move away from material possessions to a greater reliance on abstract normativeness of the ear. In reality, vision in the desert is monochromatic. When vividly colored, however, this vision is more often than not a fata morgana. Thus, the Mosaic revolution substituted the word, the Torah, the Logos, for the eye of the Egyptians. Hence, the Jews placed the phylacteries on their forehead between their eyes, in contrast to the cobra-like style of the eye of Horus. Likewise, the phylacteries containing the word of God replace the crook and flail, the concrete Egyptian symbols of Divinity. Turning to Mesopotamia, we find that in the Sumerian language ear means mind and wisdom. The primacy of the ear over the eye in some parts of Mesopotamian mythology could be related to the absolute normativeness ordained by the Isaac Syndrome. Abraham’s contribution to Judaism is the sacrificial normativeness inherent in the myth of the binding of Isaac. To hear (lishmo’a), and “to obey” (lehisha ma), stem from the same root. The Sumerian goddess Inanna, the goddess of the erotic, opens her ear-mind to hear the normative discourse “down there” in history. Thus, she is the goddess of both heaven and earth. Revelatory dialogue can be effected only by the ear, after the covetousness and earthly glory of the eye has been discarded. The myth of Original Sin, which is obviously of Mesopotamian origin, proscribes the concrete knowledge of the forbidden fruit, which was “pleasing the eye,” which in turn effects a knowledge that opens the eyes.180 This could be analogous to the Egyptian opening of the eye. Mostly, it contrasts with the ear-mind and hearingobedience isomorphism of early Mesopotamia and patriarchal Judaism. Therefore, the most heinous of sins is to prefer the concrete covetousness of the eye to the normativeness of hearing, which stems from an abstract deity. Referring back to our comparison of the Judaic mytho-genesis and the other leading mythologies of the Mediterranean basin, we see that the first chapters of Genesis proscribe leaving the domain of the word, the Logos, even for the purpose of revelation and creativity. The connecting structure should always be the Logos, even in cosmology and theophany. Genesis Raba, the foremost mythogenic exegesis of the book of Genesis, states that bereshit, the first word of the Bible, stands for the Torah, the creative Logos. Hence, for God, the creation of the world, the Torah, the word, was the connecting structure. The Jews were instructed to remain in the realm of the Torah-Logos in all their relationships with their surroundings, as

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well as with transcendence. The myth of Original Sin was the human attempt to gain knowledge, not by the word of the Torah, but through the ingestion of the object. Likewise, the building of the tower of Babel was an attempt to utilize a mechanical connecting structure to trespass into transcendence. This caused the splintering of the unique Logos into a Babylon of diverse faulty connecting structures and cross-communication. As stated in Genesis Raba, the proper link between man and transcendence is the maieutic, indirect word of the Socratic pedagogue.181 Consequently, the major transgression of Moses was to use his rod, instead of the word, the Logos, to produce water for the thirsty people of Israel at Mei Meribah. The Mythogenic Structure, for the Greeks, is the aesthetic mediation medium carving out an orderly kosmos, effecting the aesthetic sculpting of objects in space and time and a functional balance between humans and Gods. This brings us to our conception of the anthropic principle, which posits man as the archetypal connecting link between the ani consciousness and energy matter. Indeed, God’s Logos, the word, started the creation of the world when he said Fiat Lux. The circumference of light encased the diachronic aquarium. Then all of creation was effected by God’s word.182 As mentioned, God’s words, as accumulated in the Torah, served as a blue print for the creation of the world. The Midrash says that the first word of the Book of Genesis, bereshit, in the beginning, is actually the Torah,183 meaning that the Torah served as a model, a plan, for the creation of the world. Also, the Midrash states that the Torah was the first creation, written with black fire on white fire.184 With the stretch of our mythoempirical imagination we may say that the black and white fire, as the potential of creation, may represent the black hole surrounded by the white hot “event horizon.” In Lurianic Kabbala, the line of light emanates from infinity onto a round space which is the emanant.185 The circumference of the cosmic containers is engulfed by light which is distinct from the internal lights.186 The Kabbala’s bias for the ȜoȖos, hearing and the ear, is clear from the statement of Hayim Vital, the foremost exponent of the Lurianic Kabbala. He says that the superior light which surrounds the world stems from Adam Kadmon’s (primal man’s) ear.187 This is in contra distinction to the sacrilegious eye of Eve. She saw that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was good to eat, that it was a delight (or rather passion, in the original Hebrew) to the eye, and that the tree would make one knowledgeable.188 The sinful eye makes one covetous and sacrilegious, whereas the ear is the fount of normativeness. Yet, both the ear and the eye complement the

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components of experience and longing in our generative Mythogenic Structure. The Lurianic cosmogony is tripartite: the tzimtzum, the contraction, the shevira, the cataclysmic breaking of the cosmic vessels, and the tikkun, the mending of the supernal catastrophe. The tzimtzum, the supernal contraction, was created in order “to shape the naught and void to subsequentially emanate the worlds in this emptiness.”189 For the Kabbala, this contraction, which is the first phase of the creation of the worlds, was initiated because of an inherent vileness in Divinity, denoted by the Kabbala as “stern judgment.”190 This reveals the basic Gnostic negative value judgment of the Kabbala against the creation of the world as its inception was catalyzed by the structural evil present in Divinity. This tzimtzum is the mytho-empirical projection of the big crunch into a black hole preceding the Big Bang, the equivalent of Kabbalist shevira, the catastrophic breaking of the vessels, which created the world. Indeed, the big crunch happens when the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar limit is acceded. This is a ratio between the mass and density of astral bodies, expressed as 1.4 solar masses. When this limit is surpassed, the cosmic body collapses into a black hole. It is surrounded by an event horizon which marks the limits of the black hole from which light cannot escape because it is trapped by the gravity within the black hole. The black hole and its event horizon is mytho-empiricized by the Kabbala as the tehiru, the empty space, the void, created after the tzimtzum. At the centre of the black hole, which is the singularity, is a point of infinite gravity – the end of a cosmic cycle, the big crunch, and the point of initiation of a new one, the Big Bang.191 The mytho-empirical equivalent of the singularity is a small point denoted by the Kabbala as reshimu,192 an initial point of light within the empty naught created by the tzimtzum, the contraction, the big crunch in which the world would thence be emanated.193 As stated earlier, the breaking of the vessels was the means of cleansing the Divinity of its inherent foulness – this view is expounded by the disciples of Isaac Luria: Haim Vital held that the Divinity is blemished while Ibn Tabul wrote of the corruption of God “Like the upper layers of the barrel of wine which are pure and clear whereas the yeast and refuse of grape peels and seeds sinks down and has to be expelled.”194 If the tzimtzum has revealed the blemish and the vileness in God, then the breaking of the vessels has cathartically expelled the waste from Divinity. This waste served as raw material for the creation of the lower worlds while the upper worlds of emanation remained pure and untainted. The end result of the shevirat hakelim was that these upper rungs of Divinity

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remained purified in the upper world of atzilut, whereas the seven lower rungs which included Malchut, kingdom, representing the Schechina (God’s holy presence), were hurled into exile, into the world of creatures (yezirah and Asiyyah).195 This Gnostic and neo-Platonic bias of Lurianic Kabbala shows the dualism of the synchronic purity of the world of emanation, and the basic profanity of the diachronic world of creation. In physics, the Big Bang starts with a smooth flow of expanding energy resulting in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spatially curved closed universe,196 triggered by the potential of the quantum world, and ending in a spatio-temporal aquarium. Earlier we showed that the creative link between the diachronic and quantum worlds is the mythogene structured from the revelatory observation of the world soul as the universal consciousness, either by itself or through its reflection in the consciousness of life-forms. This mythogene incorporates a blueprint of the diachronic and quantum worlds. The interaction between them is through a virtual particle sending out information (through the ȜoȖos) over the uncertainty barrier, which clones the probability wave that interacts with Schrödinger’s wave function by a resonance, and then the virtual messenger returns to the classic world over the uncertainty barrier. This is possible as, according to the uncertainty relationships, if the virtual particle has a very low energy, it would have enough time to “steal” over the uncertainty frontier, deliver its generative message to the quantum world, and return to the classical world. Mytho-empirically we may see the Kellipot Nogah, shells, of radiance which links the sacred and profane worlds,197 as representing the Mythogenic Structure surrounded by a field of virtual particles which may radiate over the uncertainty barrier. This initial structure, like the whole Divine essence after its contraction, has mixed elements of goodness and vileness.198 Indeed, the breaking of the vessels was a cathartic division between the sacred quantum world, mytho-empiricized by the world of atzilut retaining its three supernal rungs and the lower world of praxis (Asiyyah) containing the seven profane rungs, which have fallen into the mires of spatio-temporality. The process of separation has taken place in the world of creation (yezirah). The Mythogenic Structure in it effected a separation of the worlds which served as raw material for the profane world of creation (our diachronic aquarium), and the upper world of atzilut from the particles of light. Some of the dross has remained in the sacred world of emanation and some of the particles of light have been scattered in the world of Praxis (Asiyyah).199 After the separation of the world of Praxis (our spatiotemporal aquarium) from the sacred world of emanation (the quantum

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world), the task of tikkun (mending) of the world of Divine emanation still remains. This is effected by moving the sparks of light strewn into the world by the breaking of the vessels back to the world of emanation, and to continue cleansing the Divine realm of emanation from the residual of dross left by the Armageddon of the Big Bang. This continuous tikkun is the realm of the worthy in their theurgic tasks. This act of tikkun is neverending as the vile acts of man feed refuse and vileness into Divinity. The Original Sin was followed by the sin of Cain, the first fratricide; thereafter, the Tower of Babel, the flood, the sins of the people of Israel in the desert (especially the heinous transgression of the Golden Calf), and so on until today. Moreover, the Gnostic or rather, the neo-Platonic bias of Lurianic Kabbala, envisages a mixture of good and evil of an ever-growing proportion of vileness over righteousness in the created demiurgical world. Yet the initial space created after the tehiru and tzimtzum, the contraction of God, was not really empty. In it were the least sacred or rather, the profane particles of light representing the dinim, the stern judgment, the corrupt component of Divinity.200 Then the actual creation started with a ray of light structured into the image of Adam Kadmon, the primary man. But the particles of light emanating from his eyes were chaotic and in disarray, denoted by Lurianic Kabbala as olam hatohu, the world of disorder or chaos.201 This could be the mytho-empirical projection for the claim that an absolute void does not exist in the temporal aquarium. Even what appears to be a vacuum is permeated by the Lambda force counteracting gravity and keeping the universe expanding.202 Thus nearvacuum is still in the realm of the classic aquarium as the quantum world has no void, no Lambda force, or Higgs field which has a non-zero value in empty space giving size to masses of fundamental particles.203 In the synchronic quantum world, Schrödinger’s wave function or an implicate order, give us information as to our chances of locating a physical eigenstate in space and time. Thus our concepts of language and mythoempiricism, which are appropriate for the classical world, are inappropriate for the synchronic quantum world. The breaking of the vessels, the cosmic catastrophe, effected a destruction, a downgrading and a blemish, in the supernal ten rungs, according to the following neo-Platonic gradation: the three lowest rungs, malchut (kingdom), yessod (foundation), and hod (grandeur), were too polluted to be cleansed. Thus they were completely destroyed. The Kabbalastic metaphor is that some earthenware vessels are so polluted that they can only be cleansed by destruction.204 Four of the remaining seven rungs were broken as they were not completely polluted: tife’eret (glory), netzah (eternity), din (stern judgment), and hessed (grace). They could still

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be purged and cleansed. The three upper rungs were partially blemished: bina (intelligence), hochma (wisdom), and keter (crown). The damage to the upper Divine rungs necessitates their theurgic mending by man. Thus humans become (junior) partners to God in the continuous acts of creation. This is the mytho-empirical counterpart to the partnership of the human consciousness, which is the reflection of the world soul within human beings (and other creatures), with the synchronic quantum world in the creation of physical eigenstates. The tikkun, the mending, which is the third phase of the Lurianic Kabbalist cosmology and theogony, is anthropocentric and theurgic. The particles of Divinity strewn in the mires of spatio-temporality are to be raised by the worthy deeds of man and returned to the blemished Divinity to effect repair. This is a never ending task as the sins of man are also theurgic; the theurgic mending of the righteous is annulled by the infractions of the evildoers. Therefore, there is no Messiah in Lurianic Kabbala. There is no ultimate triumph of the savior following the theurgic victory of the righteous. The light of the worthy against the sinners is eternal and without end. The breaking of the vessels also unleashed the powers of evil within Divinity and gave them a Gnostic equal standing with the powers of worth. Thus the war between these two powers is never resolved. According to the Midrash, God continuously creates and destroys worlds. This might well be a mytho-empirical anchor to the Big Bang and big crunch cycles of cosmology. Finally, here we have a vindication of a basic existentialist maxim that the processes and their meanings are of prime importance, and not the mostly unattainable goals. Therefore we have the counsel of St. Catherine of Siena: La Strada de Paradiso et ancessa Paradiso, (The road to heaven is also heaven), and the insight of a true Olympian, as Albert Camus advises us is that in hisn his endless drudgeries even Sisyphus could find a creative modus vivendi with his stone and extricate himself from his dire fate into the saving grace of a moment–to-moment fulfillment.205 We will compare the Kabbalist notion of Ein-Sof (infinity) with the quantum mechanical potential of Schrödinger’s wave function as a means of recapitulating the Lurianic Kabbalist creation as a mytho-empirical counterpart to the physical cosmology. The Lurianic Ein-Sof, permeates everywhere and everything. It is the omnipotent potential before any process of creation has been initiated.206 This is the essence of the quantum world’s wave function. It is unlike the diachronic aquarium as it is stochastic, unobservable, and surrounded by the uncertainty barrier which prevents a comprehensive measurement of the quantum world. Like the Kabbalist infinity, it is the source, of emanation and creation. The Kabbalist

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act of tzimtzum is the contraction of Divinity to create a space so that the universe can be created. This contraction of the potentiality of Ein-Sof, and the formation of the tehiru, the primeval void in which the worlds may be created, is very much like the formation of the black hole. The latter was formed by intense gravity after the big crunch. A round pit of maximum density was formed where even rays of light cannot escape. The black hole is surrounded by the event horizon and, in its centre, the singularity which is a point of absolute gravity. This is the point from which the Big Bang proceeds to launch a new cycle of genesis. The Kabbala places the reshimu, the kernels of Diving light mixed with particles of temporal profanity, inside the tehiru. This is the mytho-empirical counterpart to the Mythogenic Structure which is composed of profane experience and sacred longing. It is the seed from which actual creation sprouts. It is of special importance that the Adam Kadmon, the primal man, Anthropos, is instrumental to the creation. It is the virtual image of man which is emanated into the tehiru.207 The creation is then effected by the intentions and perceptions of the primal Anthropos of the Divine rungs. The lights emanating from the eyes of the primal Anthropos are profane in Judaism; the eyes see and covet. In Greek, İȚįȠȢ, to see, leads to İȚįȠȜȦȣ, an idol. Hence they are linked to the seven profane lower rungs which are subsequently broken and lead to the creation of the lower worlds. The ear which hears the ȜoȖos, the word of God, emanates pure light which is instrumental in creating the three upper rungs, which do not break and are largely unscathed in the realm of Divinity.208 This is, of course, the mythoempirical parallel of the creation of physical eigenstate by the observation of the wave function within the physical system by the human consciousness. One of our basic premises is that as the Kabbala is anthropomorphic and the creation of a physical eigenstate is effected by the sensual interaction of the human psyche with an observable in the quantum world, there should be a link between the mythogenes of creation in mythologies and the processes of the actual genesis of physical systems. Because the processes of human development are well-mapped and their mythogenic counterparts are fairly well ascertained,209 the Mythogenic Structures in mythologies like Lurianic Kabbala and the creation of physical eigenstates by human observation can be compared and mutually interpreted. The beams of light shining out of the eyes of primal Anthropos were not only instrumental in creating the profane seven rungs which were broken and became raw material for the profane aquarium of spatiotemporality. They also surrounded the aquarium – the mytho-empirical counterpart to the speed of light, the boundary of the diachronic aquarium.

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In contrast, the three sacred rungs created by the primal Anthropos’ ears were never broken and may serve as the mytho-empirical anchor for the abstract, eternal, clandestine and hence, sacred quantum world. We thus observe a basic dualism – that of the diachronic aquarium and the synchronic quantum world. On the mytho-empirical level, we have the kellipot, the shells, surrounding the temporal world signifying a Gnostic bias that spatio-temporality is ubiquitous, whereas Ein-Sof, infinity, and the three intact supernal rungs are wholesome and right. Hence the kellipot are rife and the Ein-Sof is wholesome. The bold premise of Lurianic Kabbala that the configuration of Divine light forms an image of primal man210 signifies that once man is created, the image of God is in man, as implied from God’s breathing “into his face the breath of life and man became a living soul.”211 Man possesses the reciprocation of the unitary spirit of God in him. In contrast, God assures the image of man, the primal anthropos, as his own image. Thus we have a forced bond between God and man, which manifests itself as a partnership in the creation of the world as well as in its management and control of its creatures. Moreover, the empathy and identification of man with a blemished God like Jesus Christ on the cross, and the less-than-perfect God of Lurianic Kabbala, makes for an ability to identify with God, the universal other.212 The empathy, the identifying with the suffering of the universal other is a guideline to the feeling with the human other and this enhances the possibility of dialogue between man and his fellow man. Indeed, in the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl there is complete identification between a wandering mendicant and a Divine prince.213 According to this hymn, a dialogue with the self reveals that consciousness is reflected in the self.214 This revelation is then directed to the other, or to the universal other (God), when I reached this dialogue with the other, the protagonist felt that him and his interlocutor were two identical halves of a unity and by their dialogue they were united.215 This is the essence of the mythoempirical planning of the virtual wave function formed by the virtual particle sent by the Mythogenic Structure over the uncertainty barrier to create an eigenstate of a physical system. The cloning was necessary in order to transmit information from the Mythogenic Structure to the Schrödinger wave function. This information can apparently not be transmitted directly by a tangible structure to an ineffable, volatile, stochastic abstraction in the quantum world, which is in a superposition vis a vies the classic aquarium. Thus a maieutic indirect dialogue has to be staged where a cloned virtual wave function interacts with the Schrödinger wave function, transmitting to it the longing of the observer to reunite with

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it and to create a physical eigenstate of ontological viability together, although the wave function and the human spirit are so utterly different. “A quantum vacuum,” says Polkinghorne, “is more like a plenum than like an empty space.”216 We accept the notion that the quantum world is a nothingness as wholeness as it is a potential source of wholeness. But Polkinghorne uses a misnomer as there is no space, empty or otherwise in the quantum world. There is only a potentiality of probabilities expressed by a wave function, an implicated order, and a superposition of states. The reality of the quantum world is a “smear” of probabilities expressed by abstract signs and numbers, never by concrete images and objects. This is not so in the classic diachronic aquarium. Even its emptiness is never completely empty. Barrow claims that if the universe is emptied, the Lambda force would still be there to push the cosmos to expand.217 The electroweak Higgs field exists in cold, empty space, and is instrumental in generating elementary particles.218 Bohm tells us that the transition from the implicate to the eigenstate of an explicate order is not immediate but that the virtual image of a holographic mediates between the two.219 This means that we have to learn by adaptation that the virtual hologram is indeed a chair and we cannot pierce our fingers into it. It is very much like the way our early oral self learns by deprivational experiences that it does not pantheistically fill up the universe, but ends up at the limits of its skin, which is the later oral “ego boundary.” Finally, electromagnetic waves travel through space whereas gravitational waves travel within space itself.220 In other words, the ripples of the gravitational field are of space itself and its geometrical curvature. Unlike the conceptual emptiness of the quantum world which contains only mathematical constructs of probabilities, the diachronic space can never be empty since its texture is enmeshed with the force field of gravitation which is always there, fluctuating, bending, curving, and winding the framework of space itself. One of the insights of David Bohm was that the universe, and in our context, the diachronic aquarium, is a structure in accordance with the structuralist school of thought. Piaget, one of the chief exponents of structuralism, tells us that a structure is characterized by totality, transformation, and self-regulation.221 Indeed, Bohm points out that the universe, having a measure, means that it has a limit and a boundary. Also, the universe as a structure is a harmoniously organized totality of order and measure. Hence the universe as a structure is an undivided wholeness.222 The totality of the universal structure implies that once the diachronic aquarium has been formed, it exits as an ontological, biological, ecological and economic self sufficient system-in-balance.

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The transformation of the universe as a structure enables the viability of the objects and life-forms within it. Space and time, which are peculiar to the diachronic aquarium, are surely attributes that have evolved to enable the survival of nascent objects and life-forms within the cosmic aquarium. The aspect of self-regulation in the cosmic structure is an evolutionary dynamic ensuring the adaptive survival of the universe itself in face of changing internal or external conditions. Life, space, and, time cannot exist in the synchronic “out there” which has, so we compute, only a stochastic wave function. Indeed, once we approach the speed of light, the boundary of our aquarium, we shed space and time, the protective garments of our existence. When we die we “pass away” from the diachronic “here-and-now” to the synchronic away-and-beyond. The Egyptian Book of the Dead describes in detail the mytho-empirical transition from the Horean East of our temporal existence to the Osirian West, the domain of non-being and ineffable haziness. We have already stated that we envisage five dimensions: four within the aquarium of which three are spatial and diachronic, and a fifth, synchronicity, which is timeless. The irreversibility of time is an attribute of the diachronic aquarium as space, time, causality, and entropy, which determines the arrow of time All these are attributes of the diachronic aquarium. They do not exist outside of the aquarium. When Minkowsky hypothesized the relationship between diachronicity and synchronicity he presented it as follows:223

future

elsewhere

past

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He did not specify that synchronicity, or the present, should be placed outside the two diachronic cones. However, he placed “elsewhere” in contrast to diachronicity so implying that synchronicity is not the opposite of diachronicity; the indefinable “elsewhere” signifying the no-time, which is of a different conceptual base than future and past. Therefore, not only is time irreversible in diachronicity, but it also does not exist in synchronicity. When and if time does not exist in the synchronic “elsewhere” it cannot be reversible. One cannot reverse what does not exist. Consequently, in the quantic world, there is no space-time and no local causality. This means that information is transmitted in the quantic world instantaneously quicker than the speed of light. In our context, the second law of thermodynamics applies only to the diachronic aquarium as in synchronicity, there is very low entropy and hence, hardly any arrow of time. When the almost perfect symmetry of synchronicity gives way to disturbances, to curvatures and transformations which eventually give rise to the diachronic aquarium, the symmetry breaks, entropy rises and spatio-temporal asymmetry manifests itself in the arrow of time. Also, when the anima mundi, the Neo-platonic Nous, which is reflected in every creature, effects a revelation within a human being or creature capable of self-awareness, a Mythogenic Structure is formed. The mandate of the Nous, the reflection of the universal spirit in us, is to know ourselves and abide by this self-knowledge to generate the revelation which structures the mythogene and thus, initiating the process of creation. The information infused in the mythogene is, no doubt, a negentropic dynamic that first lowers the entropy; with the act of measurement and the collapse of a physical eigenstate the process of entropy begins and the asymmetrical arrow of time proceeds with a full impact. The flow of timespace in relation to objects is the Heraklitean ȆĮȞȉĮ ȇDzǿ (everything flows), which characterizes the relational ontology of diachronicity. By contrast, in the synchronicity of the quantic world, relationship is ruled out by the uncertainty barrier: one can observe a position and then it is a “still slice,”224 or a “freeze frame.”225 As you cannot measure the velocity of the object, the freeze frame is meaningless to diachronicity because the ontology of diachronicity is determined by the position as it relates to movement. Observing a “now slice,”226 – the eternal now of synchronicity – when divorced from space is also the essentially relational spatiotemporality of diachronicity.227 Hence, to be meaningful, the relationship of the self as a reflection of the Nous, the universal spirit, after the revelation of a self-knowledge which structures a mythogene and an object or another, must be dialogical. This is the infusion of the eternal now, the Burning Bush, into history; this mytho-empiricizes the Leap of Faith into

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the mundane, and Buber’s I and (the universal) Thou signifying the infusion of synchronicity into diachronicity.

Notes 1

Weinberg, S., Dreams of a Final Theory (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996), 127. 2 Ibid., 156. 3 Ibid., 135. 4 Wigner, E., “Remarks on the Mind Body Question,” in The Scientist Speculates, edited by I. J. Good (London: Heinemann 1961). 5 Green, B., The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (New York: Knopf, 2004). 6 Bohr, N., Atomic Theory and the Disruption of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932). 7 Ginzberg, L., The Legends of the Jews, vol. 7 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 104. 8 Genesis 3: 24. 9 Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, 186. 10 Ibid., 204. 11 Exodus 33. 12 Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1946), 301. 13 Rudolph Otto’s denotation of the Holy. See Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy trans. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1950). 14 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 29. 15 Genesis 1: 3. 16 Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, 126. 17 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 263. 18 For the four forces of nature, see Pagels, H. R., The Cosmic Code (New York, Bantam, 1983), 233. 19 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 272. 20 Pagels, H. R., Perfect Symmetry (New York: Bantam, 1986), 250. 21 Hawking, S. and Penrose, R., The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 16. 22 Ibid., 21. 23 Ibid., 67. 24 Ibid., 19. 25 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 478. 26 Gribbin, J., In Search of the Edge of Time (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1993), 82. 27 Ibid., 84. 28 Vital, H., Etz Haim (Jerusalem: Research Centre of Kabbala, 1978), Gate A, chapter 2: p. 2 side 1. 29 Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, 21.

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Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 264. Ibid., 266-7. 32 Vital, H., Sefer Mevo-Shearim (Parashat: Vayishlah, 1913), 22: A. 33 Gikatilla, J., Shaarei Orah (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1970), 15. 34 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 13. 35 Tishby, I., The Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot in Lurianic Kabbala (Jerusalem: Schoken, 1942), 28. 36 Ibid., 31. 37 Ibid., 22. 38 Lachover, F. and Tishby, I., The Wisdom of the Zohar: Texts from the Book of Splendour, vol. 1, trans. D. Goldstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 39 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 15. 40 Ibid. 41 Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1953), 141. 42 Ibid., 301. 43 Doresse, J., The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics (London: Hollis and Carter, 1960), 162. 44 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 24, 25, 28. 45 .Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 192. 46 Cited in Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 24. 47 Ibid., 64. 48 ,Ibid., 40. 49 Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 227. 50 Ibid., 76. 51 From the correspondence of G. E. Lessing cited in Ha’aretz Literary Supplement (March 1979). 52 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 37. 53 Ibid., 28-9. 54 Scholem, G. G., Kabbala (Jerusalem: Ketter, 1978), 96 et seq. 55 Ibid., 104. 56 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 37. 57 Ibid., 125 58 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 108. 59 Foerster, W., “The Gospel of Truth” in Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 54, 67. 60 Vital, Etz Haim, 47. 61 Foerster, W., “The Gospel of Philip,” in Gnosis, 94. 62 Foerster, W., “The Exegesis of the Soul” in ibid., 103. 63 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 44. 64 Reich, W., The Source of the Human “No” (recording). 65 Beckett, S., Waiting for Godot (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 89. 66 Vital, Etz Haim, 19. 67 Ibid., 24. 68 Ibid., 4, 38. 69 Ibid., 1, 12. 31

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Vital, H., Sefer Halikutim (Tel Aviv: Yeshivat or Hazer, 1981). Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. 72 Scholem, G. G., Elements of the Kabbala and its Symbolism (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1976), 106. 73 Scholem, G. G., Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah 1626-1676, trans. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 28. 74 Pelah-Harimon Bereish Haminuta. 75 Vital, H., “Shaar HaKlalim” in Etz Haim. 76 Vital, H., Sefer Mevo Shearim (Tel Aviv: Hotsaat Kitve Rabenu ha-Ari Zatsal, [1959]), chap. 3. 77 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. 78 Foerster, W., Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). 79 Vital, Etz Haim, chap. 4. 80 Ibid. 81 Eliade, M. A., Birth and Rebirth (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 8-9. 82 Conze E., Buddhist Texts Through the Ages (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1954). 83 Hastings, J., ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (New York: Scribner and Sons, 1951). 84 Widengren, G., “The Principle of Evil in Eastern Religion,” in Evil (Evanston, Ill.,: Northwestern University Press, 1967), 48. 85 Ibid., 47. 86 Neumann, E., The Great Mother (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). 87 Encyclopedia Judaica, 1st ed., s.v. “Kabala”. 88 Ibid. 89 Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 43. 90 Muller, Max F., The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 15 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), pt 2, 88-89. 91 Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 187. 92 Scholem, Elements of the Kabbala, 111. 93 Pagels, E., The Gnostic Gospels. (New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1981), 59. 94 Horodezky, S. A., Lurianic Kabala (Tel Aviv: The Hebrew Writers’ Association, 1947), 42. 95 Heidegger, M., Existence and Being, 3rd ed. (London: Vision, 1968), 34. 96 Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 218. 97 Ibid., 57. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. 100 Leboyer, F., “Birth Without Violence,” in A. Macfarlane, The Psychology of Childbirth (London: Wildwood House, 1975). 101 Muller, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 15, 88-89. 102 Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 187. 103 Heidegger, M., Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwells, 1967), 231. 104 Ibid., 227. 71

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Kierkegaard, S., Training in Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 89. 106 Pagels, Gnostic Gospels, 59. 107 Ibid., 62. 108 Ibid., 66. 109 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 61. 110 Addas, C., Quest for the Red Sulphur (Cambridge: Islamic Text Society, 1993), 156. 111 Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, 6-7. 112 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 270-271. 113 Ibid., 272. 114 Polkinghorne, J., Quantum Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 44-45. 115 Barrow, J. D. and Tipler, F. J., The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986). 116 Ibid., 23. 117 Ibid. 118 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 224-25. 119 Penrose, R., The Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Penguin, 1991), 367-8. 120 Genesis 2: 19-20 121 Eliade, M., A History of Religious Ideas, trans. Willard R. Trask (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978), 1:59-60. 122 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 265. 123 Genesis 1: 27. 124 Genesis 41: 38. 125 Gribbin, J., In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat (New York: Bantam, 1983), 210. 126 Heisenberg, W., Physics and Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 143. 127 Barrow and Tipler, Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 418. 128 Genesis 1: 27. 129 Genesis 1: 2. 130 Riorden, M., The Hunting of the Quark (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 78. 131 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 272. 132 Exodus 33: 18, 20, 23. 133 Layton, B., The Gnostic Scriptures (London: SCM Press, 1995), 366 et seq. 134 Ibid., 374. 135 Ibid., 367. 136 Ibid., 371. 137 Ibid., 375. 138 Bohr, N., Philosophical Writings, vol.1-3 (Woodbridge, Conn.: Ox Bow Press, 1987). 139 Feyerabend, P. K., “Problem of Microphysics,” in Philosophical Papers, vol.1 (Cambridge University Press, 1981).

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Von Neumann J., Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), chap. 5, 6. 141 Wigner, “Remarks on the Mind Body Question.” 142 Bohm, D., “A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of ‘Hidden’ Variables, I and II” Physical Review 1952 (85): 166, 180. 143 Bell, J. “Orthospaces and Quantum Logic” Foundations of Physics, 15 no. 12 (1985): 1179. 144 Bohm, D. Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1983), 149-150. 145 Ibid., 145-146. 146 Everett H., “Relative State Formation of Quantum Mechanics” Review of Modern Physics 1957: 29, 454. 147 DeWitt, B. and Graham, N, eds, The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton University Press, 1993). 148 DeWitt, B., “Quantum Mechanics and Reality” Physics Today 1970 29(9), 30. 149 Albert, D and B. Loewer, “Interpreting the Many Worlds Interpretation” Synthese, 1988 77 (2). 150 Ghirardi, G., Rimini, A. and Weber T., “Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems” Physical Review D, 1986, 34 (2),.470-9. 151 Ghirardi G., Beyond Conventional Quantum Mechanics. Presented at the Symposium on Quantum Physics in memory of John Bell. CERN 2-3 May, 1991. 152 D. Albert, D. and Loewer, B., “Wanted Dead or Alive: Two Attempts to solve Schrödinger's Paradox,” PSA, 1990, 1, 277-85. 153 Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory. 69. 154 Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, 103. 155 Ibid., 5. 156 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 333. 157 Hawking and Penrose, Nature of Space and Time, 140. 158 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 416-417. 159 Penrose, Emperor’s New Mind, 419. 160 Ibid., 446-447. 161 Ibid., 425. 162 Weinberg, S., The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 101-123. 163 Weisskopf, V., “The Origin of the Universe,” American Scientist SeptemberOctober, 1983. vol.71, 473-480. 164 Polkinghorne, Quantum Theory, 25. 165 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism,273. 166 Exodus 33: 18-20. 167 Malachi 3: 6. 168 Shoham, S. G., Rebellion, Creativity and Revelation (Middlesex: Science Reviews Ltd., 1984), 35. 169 Ibid., 36. 170 Ibid. 171 Ibid., 38.

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Cordovero, M., Sefer Pardes Rimonim (Jerusalem: Atiya, [1960]), 225. Vital, Etz Hayim, chap. 2, para 5, 4. 174 Deuteronomy 6: 4. 175 Faulkner, R. O., trans. and ed., The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (Warminster, England: Aris and Phillips, 1973). 176 Faulkner, R. O., trans. and ed., The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). 177 Faulkner, R. O., trans., The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, ed. Carol Andrews (London: British Museum Pub., 1985). 178 Tillich, P., The Boundaries of Our Being (London: Fontana, 1973), 100-108. 179 Budge, E. A. W., Osiris, vol. 2 (London: Warner, 1911), 306. 180 Genesis 3: 6. 181 Genesis Raba a :1. 182 Genesis chap.1. 183 Genesis Raba. 184 Ginzberg, L., Legends of the Jews, vol 3. Baltimore (The John Hopkins Press, 1998), 3. 185 Vital, Etz Haim, gate A, 73. 186 Ibid., gate B, chap. 3, 71. 187 Ibid., gate B, chap. 2, 36. 188 Genesis 3: 6. 189 Vital, H. Sefer Mevo Shearim, cited in Tishby I., The Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 27. 190 Ibid., 56. 191 Penrose, Emperor’s New Mind, 435. 192 Vital, Etz Haim, gate 11, chap. 7, 54. 193 Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 27. 194 Ibn Tabul, Y., Drosh Heftzi-bah B., 4. 195 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 266-280, and Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot, 57-59. 196 Penrose, Emperor’s New Mind, 419. 197 Vital, Etz Hayim, Gate 49, 111. 198 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 267. 199 Vital, Etz Haim, Gate 6, chapter 5, 27. 200 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 264-265 and Tishby, Doctrine of Evil and the Kelippot, 36. 201 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 265. 202 Barrow, J. D., The Book of Nothing (New York: Vintage Books, 2000), 298. 203 Greene, B., Fabric of the Cosmos, 538. 204 Vital, Sefer Halikutim, Mishney (Proverbs), 92. 205 Camus, A., The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Knopf, 1967). 206 Jacobson, Y., From Lurianic Kabbalism to the Psychological Theosophy of Hassidism (Tel Aviv: The Broadcasting University, 1986), 24. 207 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 265. 173

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Tishby, Doctrine of the Evil and the Kellipot, 50-51. Shoham, S. G., The Myth of Tantalus (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005) 210 Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 265. 211 Genesis 2: 7. 212 This is the denotation of God by Martin Buber: I and Thou. 213 Layton, Gnostic Scriptures, 371. 214 Ibid., 366. 215 Ibid., 374. 216 Polkinghorne, Quantum Theory, 74. 217 Barrow, Book of Nothing, 184. 218 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 538. 219 Bohm, D., Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 143-145. 220 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 419. 221 Piaget, J., Le Structuralisme (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1987), 26-7. 222 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. 223 Fraser, J. T., The Voices of Time (New York: George Braziller, 1966), 427. 224 Greene, Fabric of the Cosmos, 127 et seq. 225 Ibid., 138. 226 Ibid., 139. 227 A phrase used by Paul Tillich in Eternal Now. 209

CHAPTER FOUR FIAT LUX ET HOMO FABER: LET THERE BE LIGHT AND MAN THE CREATOR

Art is an extrication from reality and its reconstruction all over again in a new form. —Glen Gould

Revelation is a very private, intuitive experience which cannot be transmitted symbolically by language. This mysterium tremendum originating in the unconscious and triggered maieutically by a guru, a song, a flower or a fleeting perception cannot be explained rationally. Often, when recounted, it falls flat on the ears of the listeners. In all likelihood Freud was right in saying that consciousness is but the visible tenth of the bulk of an iceberg. The remaining nine-tenths of the unconsciousness is clandestine, submerged under water with its contours and insurmisable shape. Revelation is the spine tingling inner unfolding of an inspiring truth that needs no further proof. Since it cannot be shaped in words it is structured in a mythogene which, if embedded in an artifact or a work of art, can thence be communicated to an outside audience. This is why revelation can be conveyed only through a Mythogenic Structure enmeshed in a creation which may be perceived admired, ignored or despised by an audience. The first step in the process leading to creativity is indeed revelation. This stems from the participant component of the personality which shines forth from the inner self. This discovery that sprouts from the inner core of the self may be projected onto the object, or the other, by the mythogene which gives it meaning, worth, or enlightenment. This revelatory moment conveys the feeling that everything has fallen into place, that obscurity has given way to clarity. This moment, which cannot be easily analysed or defined, is distinctly felt by every creator. It makes the inventor shout, “Eureka.” The musician feels a spine-tingling elation and the director senses that the actor spoke his lines well. This revelatory feeling that interacts dialectically through the mythogene with the object-bound

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creative process is specific and unique to each creator. The feeling itself, and the contents of the revelation, cannot be effectively transmitted to others. However, the fact of its experience and the resultant mythogene is imprinted in the creation and is, therefore, manifest to an observer. Indeed the creator, having experienced a revelation and embedded the mythogene in his creation, provides his work with the element of authenticity that it would otherwise lack. The inauthentic musicians, writers, and artists cater to the whims of the generalized other and produce ready-made goods for quick consumption and shallow thrills. Without the revelatory component a creation is flat. Without a spark of the inner self of the creator infused in it as a mythogene, the creation is inauthentic. A mytho-empirical light is shed on this by Lurianic Kabbala where the world of mere doing is the world of flat matter, whereas the world of creation involves inspirational exposure to angels.1 Creativity is the expression of a unique personality. In order to be authentic, the creation has to include some participant dynamics of ego’s inner self and is, therefore, as specific to ego as his fingerprints. Consequently, imitation of the creativity of the other or the servile acceptance of the directives of the other or the dictates of totalitarian regimes render creation inauthentic. Discipleship can also render a creation inauthentic, unless the master-teacher serves as a maieutic (midwife) catalyst to his pupils’ talents. In the latter case, the teacher helps the creative potential of the pupil to sprout and flower and does not stifle it through authoritarian impositions. Authentic creativity requires liberation from the generalized other as a precondition; revelation, however, needs much more. Prior to revelation, man must dim his cognition and extricate himself from the fetters of his objective surroundings. Divine revelation, says Shestov the religious existentialist, is the product of “a spiritual exertion of quite a peculiar nature which we describe as ‘audacity.’ Only when we have forgotten the laws which bind us fast to limited existence can we raise ourselves up above human truths and human good. To raise himself, man must lose the ground under his feet.”2 “Before the face of eternal God, all our foundations break together and all ground crumbles under us, even as objects – this we know – lose their weight in endless space, and – this we shall probably learn one day – will lose their impermeability in endless time.”3 The defiant, “audacious” rebel seeking revelation will try to nullify the temporal constraints of his soul so that it “shines forth” in the face of its Divine origins in nonbeing, ready to partake in its boundlessness. Our conception of revelation which gives rise to the Mythogenic Structure and the process of creation of the Promethean holon is sui

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generis. Historically, revelation was related to religious experiences, to the exposure of the individual to transcendence. For us, however, all accounts of revelatory religious experiences have a mytho-empirical value because they constitute a mythological projection of core personality experiences. These are transmitted by the ani to the level of consciousness and mythology, although the core personality processes are largely subconscious. Thus, although our empirical anchors in the present context are taken from belief systems, our aim will be to understand the revelations triggering creativity, i.e., the “Eureka!” of Archimedes, the oceanic feelings of Freud, which presumably display similar dynamics to the revelatory processes underlying the exposure of the individual to his ani inner self in the process of structuring his mythogenic connecting agent. Indeed, we claim that mytho-empiricism is probably the sole method for gleaning information about the otherwise unfathomable dynamics of structuring the mythogene. The solitude of the individual is a unique loneliness because his inner core is linked by an umbilical cord to unity. Of this, the individual can be aware of only if he turns inwardly to his “pure” ani. Man, by examining his inner self, is revealed to truth and God, which are synonymous. To this end, the outside, the objects, and the others are unnecessary and confound the channel of awareness, both of oneself and one’s surroundings. The idea that all sense perception is illusive and that all truth stems from the inner awareness of being, linked to the manifestation of the infinite and invisible unity, is projected mutadis mutandis in most monotheistic creeds and proclaimed by the first commandment of the Decalogue. Heidegger’s conception of Dasein as the unveiling and disclosure of being, as the basic ontological truth which needs no further proof, is quite similar to the extreme participant pole of our personality continuum with its objectless ‘pure-self’ (the ani). On this pole, Ego identifies with a person (persons), an object, or a symbolic construct outside of itself, and strives to lose its separate identity by fusion with this other object or symbol. This is the pole towards which the individual would move, to yearn for, when his revelatory experiences which he feels or believes would be likely to manifest themselves. The separant pole on which Ego aims to sever, disjoin, and differentiate himself from his surrounding is where the interactive self (atzmi) is posited. It anchors on logic and causality and would be quite amenable to the Cartesian cognito ergo sum as proof of its existence. Many of our mytho-empirical anchors are Gnostic and Kabbalistic. The two disciplines are dualist and, hence, fit our basic conception of all

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creation as a perpetual interaction between the ani consciousness and energy-matter, through the mediation of Mythogenic Structures. Our first mytho-empirical anchor is taken from Sha’arei Tzedek, a thirteenth-century Spanish Kabbalist tract (its name means Gates of Righteousness) which states that the lower man and the “higher man sitting on the Divine throne” are both signified by the Hebrew letter yod (ʩ).4 This letter is the first in the Tetragrammaton (the four-letter name of God in Hebrew – YHWH), and has a graphic shape of a half-circle. These two yods – the two semi-circles – long to be united as a whole circle causing the lower and upper man to be elevated to the “Throne of Divinity.” This could serve as a mytho-empirical anchor for the revelatory process of structuring the mythogene. The lower man, representing the mortal human, is exposed to the upper man, who could signify the exposure to the inner ani consciousness. The result is the integration of the two half-circles into one. Translated into the conceptual context of our model, the interactive atzmi separant vector is integrated with the ani participant vector into the Tantalus Ratio, which constitutes the subsequently formed mythogene. This mythogene then triggers the creation of the Promethean holon, be it a Christmas dinner or the eigenstate of a particle. In a similar vein the Gnostic Gospel of Philip speaks about truth and its image thus: Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. It [the world] will not receive it in any other way. There is rebirth and an image of rebirth. It is truly fitting to be reborn through the image. What is the resurrection and the image? It is fitting that it rises through the image.5

We contend that the truth here, for the firmly participant Gnostic, stands for the attributeless “pure” ani-consciousness. The created world of spatio-temporality cannot accept it in its “nakedness,” i.e., its a-historic nature. It needs a go-between or image which we interpret mythoempirically as our mediating Mythogenic Structure. In Gnostic light, which, with its participant bias, would stand mythoempirically for the ani – and darkness – representing the profane energymatter, intermingle to create the world. In the theosophical Kabbala, the ten sefirot (rungs) contain an image of God clothing himself, yet are an integral part of divinity. These are the mytho-empirical manifestations of named archetypes, forming an inner ani consciousness dynamics, as well as being coined denotations facing creation. These holonic manifestations of named archetypes also represent the initial formations of the Mythogenic Structures. The ten sefirot are then structured into five countenances (partzufim) which are the mytho-empirical projection of full-

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fledged mythogenic connecting structures. As we shall see later, the coupling interaction or intercourse (zivug) of these countenances constitutes acts of creation. In our conceptualization, the countenances are mythogenic connecting structures which produce the Promethean holon, the entire holonic product, creation, or artifact. The Kabbala envisages that each life form and object has a transcendental root (shoresh). This we could take to be a mytho-empirical projection of the Mythogenic Structure as constituting the transcendental model or blueprint for creation. These roots constitute an integration of grace and stern judgment. Here again, the participant bias of the Kabbala would conceive grace to be the projection of the ani-consciousness and stern judgment to be. The intermingling of sacred and profane elements in these Kabbalist “roots” is universal, even if they risk sacrilege. Thus, Moses had his roots the atzmi not only in Abel (grace), but in Cain (stern judgment) as well. The initial stages of mythogenic formation are within the aniconsciousness. It is an intra-psychic revelatory dynamic, a dialectic between the a-historical “pure” ani and the historical participant vector within the historical self. Mytho-empirically, this intra-psychic revelatory dialectic resulting in the formation of the mythogene is envisaged by the Kabbala as the process of creation starting with God clothing himself in garments woven from the Torah and the letters of the Tetragrammaton. We may envisage the revelatory intra-psychic dialectic as culminating in the structure of the mythogene. The mythogene not only reveals what to do (i.e., lends meaning), but also how to do it (i.e., lends value to the subsequent act). This, when implemented in the act of creation, will lend meaning and value to the Promethean holon. The act of creation is, thus, a dual process: an intra-psychologic ontological dialectic leading to the formation of the mythogene and energy-matter, the creation of which was triggered by the Mythogenic Structure. The main asset of our mythogene is its suitability in integrating consciousness and energy-matter through a dual process of revelation and creativity. The immutable ani consciousness peers through ever-changing configurations of life forms, artifacts, and objects. This combination of immutability and kaleidoscopically changing plurality makes each creature unique and irreplaceable. Hence, the reflected historical ani in a specific self and the transcendental, pure ani consciousness cannot be creative in unity, as Sisyphus has to have his separate stone in order to be creative. Therefore Ego has to feel apart and separate from the transcendental ani

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for the interactive experience of revelation to take place. Hence, Ego is a partner to the transcendental ani in creativity. Mytho-empirically, we have the description of the Maggid of Meseritz, following some Kabbalist traditions according to which God contracted himself so that he could experience man’s adventure vicariously through human cognition. Says the Maggid: The Tzadikim (sages) effect God through their mind; so that He thinks what they think. If they think in love, they bring God into the realm of love as stated in the Zohar. A king (God) is imprisoned in the tresses of the [human] mind.6

In Lurianic Kabbala the doctrine that God is present in every life form and object is basic. Says Vital: There is nothing in the world and in all the worlds and in all parts of Creation; the inanimate plants, living and talking, that does not have within it sparks of Divinity which are embedded in their profane shells.7

All creation, not only man, was thrown into spatio-temporality, and all flora, fauna, and inanimate objects are in this respect equal to man, with exiled cores of divinity encased in every created separantum and in every vestige of spatio-temporality. Ibn Tabul describes this sequel to the breaking of the vessels (birth) as follows: And the Reshimu of [Divine] light… was scattered within and amongst the [sinister] powers of judgment, and these were crystallized like containers which served as a body for the soul, and, thus, a light symbol is clothed by a profane container.8

Hence, each object and life form of Creation is composed of Divine particles embedded within containers of less sacred and, in the lower spheres, downright profane matter. The barrier between Ego and transcendence must be hermetically closed; otherwise the creative interaction between experimentally different entities cannot be effected. Ego is, thus, interacting with a less than perfect transcendence which needs him for its feeling of creativity, yet cannot allow him to know that he is a part of it. The participant component of creativity is inherent in its revelatory aspect, which shines forth from the inner self. This discovery, sprouting forth from the inner core of the self, may be projected onto the object, or the other, and make it shine forth with a sudden disclosure of meaning, worth, or enlightenment. The revelatory moment makes one feel that

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everything has fallen into place, that obscurity has changed itself into clarity. This moment, which as yet does not lend itself easily to analysis and definition, is experienced by every creator, causing the musician to feel a spine-tingling elation and the director to sense that the actor has said his lines exactly right. This revelatory feeling, which interacts dialectically with the basically object-bound creative process, is specific and unique for each individual creator. The feeling itself and the contents of the revelation cannot be effectively transmitted to others, but the fact of its experience, which is the dialectical essence of the creative act, is imprinted on the creation and is, therefore, manifest to an observer. Indeed, the creator, having experienced a revelation and having embedded it in his creation, provides an element of authenticity which it would otherwise lack. Without a spark of the inner self of the creator infused into the creation, it is inauthentic. A mytho-empirical side glance might be awarded by the Lurianic Kabbala, in which the world of mere doing is the world of flat matter, but the world of creation involves the inspiration-generating exposure to angels. This is in line with the Buberian conception of reaching out towards the object as a baseline for a dialogical relationship between man and his surroundings. Hence, we envisage creativity as a real bridge between man and object. By imbuing the object with his visions and molding it as his creation, man the creator, Homo faber, entwines his psyche with the object. The participant aim of reaching Divine nothingness is revelation. This absent, yet revealing, transcendence is not a manipulating Old Testament God or a divinity, whether theistic, deistic, or pantheistic, which exists either within space-time or outside it. The revelation here is effected by the quest of exposure to the non-being of precreation and the blissful nothingness in utero. God is not in the dramatis personae of this revelatory process, because the Tantalic longing for the perception of non-being may in itself lend viability to transcendental revelation. Neither God nor the actual attainment of nothingness is necessary for the revelatory experience. The quest of non-being may suffice. This, in essence, is the message of Heidegger in his interpretation of Hölderlin’s poem Homecoming.9 The poet longs to come back to his source. The home and source are near, yet clandestine and distant. This is the unattainable Tantalic nature of the coveted source. The “reserving proximity” to “the High One who inhabits the Serene of the Holy”10 is never bridged, and the high one is never attained because “Holy names are lacking.”11 God is absent; he is nothingness. Homecoming to the source of the absent God is impossible, yet the process itself, the voyage, the longing and the writing about it, fills

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the heart with the most joyous bliss. Thus, the singer’s soul does indeed gaze into the serene, but the singer does not see the High One himself, for he is blind.12 In like manner, the Tantalic searcher of his perfect sourcetranscendental non-being is blind. He is unable to grasp his aim. His aim is unreachable, unperceivable, and nameless because it is nothingness, yet the search in itself fills the voyager with an innermost joy of Divine revelation. Man does not need God to achieve transcendence, because he may project his innermost being (Dasein) on non-being, thus trying to reach metaphysical nothingness. Projecting onto nothing, Dasein is already beyond what-is-totally and thus is able to structure a mythogene out of revelatory experience. This being beyond is what we call transcendence. “The essence of Nothing as original nihilation lies in this: that is alone brings Dasein face to face with what-is as such”13 and the result of this encounter is a mythogene. Here we find the Tantalic conception of the metaphysical elusive Dingan-sich, which is bound to confront man when and if he nihilates himself into non-being. Of more importance is our ability to translate the extreme participant Heideggerean conception of transcendence into our psychoontological context of Tantalic man, trying to realize the basic aim of his participant core-vectors to return to the boundlessness of his pre-being and projecting it onto Divine nothingness. Heidegger claims that this process of the Divine self-nihilation goes on incessantly without our noticing it in our routine, inauthentic everyday life.14 Only in moments of authentic revelation is the Divine nothingness of Dasein unveiled to us. Moreover, a failing God does not impede revelation. On the contrary, the failure of God, His non-being, and nothingness may help the voyagers’ in and naming the High One.15 The absence of God kindled the unquenchable Tantalic longing for transcendence, the way the quest for the realization of the unattainable aims of the personality core-vectors motivates man to act. The failure, i.e., the absence of God, thus makes for a continuous quest for Him which may enhance a Tantalic revelation. It may ever-recede like fata morgana, only to reappear again de capo. A dead, absent, or dying God is awe-inspiring and romantic. It has been dramatized by numerous myths, elegized by Nietzsche, and rhapsodized by Wagner. A silent God, however, is not romantic, is quite difficult to understand, and is even harder to accept. Dostoyevsky’s God in The Brothers Karamazov remains silent throughout the Grand Inquisitor’s monologue. He is even asked to remain silent, and, at the end of the encounter, he was told “go, and come no more – don’t come at all, never, never!”16

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In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, not only does God not appear, He is incommunicado. He says nothing to those who wait for him. At times they thought they heard Him, but it was only the wind in the reeds. Lucky’s cacophonous diatribe in the play contains some lucid passage in which man’s personal God is described as being in the heights of Divine apathia, Divine athambia, and aphasia.17 Ingmar Bergman seems to be obsessed by the silence of God. This is portrayed in many of his movies, especially in The Seventh Seal, in which the knight demands to know God, that He reveal Himself and speak; but Death assures the knight that God remains forever silent. These random, yet forceful, portrayals of the silence of God may represent, in context, a participant religious disposition which projects onto God the Tantalic type’s own passivity and quietism. This is in line with our thesis here that a Tantalic God, whose ideal essence is non-being, cannot manifest Himself and communicate with man. By remaining hidden, unattainable, and, therefore, incommunicado, God entices man to long and pray for Him. The longing in itself becomes the motivation of the Tantalic quietist. Per contra, if Godot appears, Dostoyevsky’s Jesus remains in the here and now, and Bergman’s God speaks up his message for humanity. Man will get used to these striking events, as the novelty wears off and they will be recorded and buried in Scriptures. Moreover, the Tantalic longing which kindles the fires of faith by becoming an aim in itself will be expended by fulfillment. The ever-receding aims of a Tantalus fuels his visions and his dreams. These are bound to degenerate into a slow contented slumber once his longings are concretized into possessions. However, man persists in praying to a silent God. Beckett’s tramps prayed to Godot, although he never seems to have noticed them. Bergman’s knight of The Seventh Seal shouts to a God “who must be somewhere, yet chooses to keep quiet”, and the son-God cries to his seemingly non-responsive father-God Eli, Eli, lama shabakhtani. The supplication to a silent God marks the participant attitude towards the payer. It is mostly a tool to achieve revelation through the blunting of spatio-temporal consciousness. It is a contemplative means which may reveal oneself to one’s innermost non-being. To this end a communicative God is unnecessary. A participant, contemplative prayer is marked by its self-sufficiency. Beckett’s two tramps in Waiting for Godot await the coming of God to no avail. Faute-de-mieux, they expect a sign from Him which does not come either. At the end of the first act they decide to go, but ultimately remain where they are. The same theme returns in Beckett’s Mercier and Camier, where the two tramps decide to go somewhere, but always come

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back. They intended to move towards a certain destination only to realize that they have no destination, that no promised land will ever be reached. And yet the tramps’ waiting for God – for a perfection which never materializes – may allow them to hone their yearned-for ideal of perfection. For Beckett and for similar Tantalic participants, only the nonrealizable quests like the unattainable aims of their core personality vectors can be perfect. When a longing materializes, it cannot be perfect, because it becomes tarnished with a deprivational object-relationship which is scorned and despised by the participant who is anchored on nonbeing. Godot must remain clandestine in order to safeguard his immaculate perfection. For a Tantalic participant, flawlessness can never be disclosed or embodied in profane space and time. Beckett, an archetypal Tantalus, renounces the manifestation of God and, thereby, reinforces the viability of revelation by a constant unquenchable search for Him. Beckett’s transcendental longing for the boundlessness of non-being permeates most of his writings. In L’Expulsé, the longing for the boundlessness of nothingness is expressed by looking up at the heaven from where help is to come, because there, nothing interferes with boundlessness, no matter in which direction one turns.18 In Watt, Beckett points out that “the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of God is to speak of him as though he were a man.”19 There is hardly any randomness in Beckett’s articulate and sophisticated writing. Hence, the relation between something and nothing is intentionally proximal to the projection of man onto God. Beckett’s characters aim also to obliterate their objective surroundings, so that they may achieve the precreation boundlessness of nothingness. Murphy aims to obliterate the outside "“big world” so that he may better cherish his inner “little world.”20 In his prose poem, Lessness, Beckett chants a haunting description of total ruin where everything falls apart, nothing stirs, and there are no sounds. Only an ash-grey sky mirrors blank planes of earth. Calm is reached with “All sides endlessness earth sky as one no stir not a breath. Blank planes sheer white calm eye light of reason all gone from mind. Scattered ruins ash-grey all sides true refuge long last issueless.”21 This is a yearning for Nirvana, bukhty, and satori lumped together in an intense longing for participant non-being. Yet Beckett aims higher. He wishes to experience death in life. He longs for the total inaction, the nihilation of sense perception, and the blankness of death while being able to experience it in vivo.22 To have the sensation of a

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living death, of being within nothingness, is Beckett’s idea of revelatory freedom. Another participant dynamic resorted to by Beckett is to try to negate his spatio-temporal surroundings, so that he may revert back to the omnipresence of early orality. In one of his stories, buildings disappear and whole streets change their location. The hero does not know which town he is in, and his view of reality is foggy and blurred.23 In another story the hero enters an empty city. Trams and buses are without passengers. The port is quiet, and its vessels are stationary. Gradually he loses himself into a glowing emptiness.24 This negation of objects and spatial surroundings is many times coupled by the obliteration of time. The two tramps in Waiting for Godot confound the hour of the day and night, they mix up the days in the week, and they confuse the number and order of the years. With spatio-temporality in ruins, the participant precreation nothingness engulfs everlasting boundlessness and projects it on the uniqueness of God. Besides nihilating their surroundings, Beckett’s characters aim to erase their own cognition and self-awareness by endless repetitious rituals, and by monotonous recitals of words and expressions – like the cyclic mantra in transcendental meditation, or the chanting of the name of God by Moslem Dervishes. The two tramps in Waiting for Godot, as well as Pozzo and Lucky, spatter gibberish to dull their awareness. Lucky’s sermon is mostly a regurgitation of stylized nonsense syllables that render one’s cognition opaque. There are also non-communicative pauses and the dialogue deteriorates into meaningless sounds. These acquire a rhythm of their own and their function seems to be, like the repetitive prayers of the quietist Hassidim, to erase one’s separate awareness in order partake in unity. Many passages in Beckett’s works, especially in How It Is,25 his Poems in English,26 and his prose poem Lessness27 are exercises in the nullification of the meaning of language and its reduction to plain liturgy. This is similar to the quietest Hassidic belief that prayer should be devoid of meaning so that its formalized rhythmic intonation may obliterate the awareness of the Hassid and elevate him to Divine nothingness. The exile of language from its contents and meaning is a suitable nihilating offering to a silent God.28 Beckett’s nullification of language is a participant projection on a Divinity that is incommunicado. We have described elsewhere the separant and normatively discriminating nature of language.29 With this in mind, we may understand why, through the trivialization of language, and its erosion into meaningless fragments, one may become close to Divine nothingness. Beckett’s characters also seek, and often undergo, physical degeneration. They sink into apathy and

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lethargy and crave the extinction of their substantiality. This quietest longing to cast off their corporeality, to dull their senses, and to eliminate their intellect, serves as a means for arriving at Divine nothingness. Winnie in Happy Days sinks into a mound.30 Hamm in Endgame becomes paralyzed31 and the Mouth, in the play with the tell-tale name of Not-I is all that remained of a nihilated body and face.32 Dante’s Belacqua who sits in purgatory in total passivity and spends his time in motionless inaction, is adopted by Beckett in many of his works. Murphy’s body was quite stationary to begin with. He never left his rocking chair which was in a corner curtained off from the sun. Beckett describes Murphy’s end as follows: Slowly he felt better, astir in his mind, in the freedom of that light and dark that did not crash, nor alternate, nor fade, nor lighten except to their communion. The rock got faster and faster, shorter and shorter, the gleam was gone, the grin was gone, the starlessness was gone, soon his body would be quiet. Most things under the moon got slower and slower and then stopped, a rock got faster and faster and then stopped. Soon his body would be quiet, soon he would be free. The gas went on in the W.C., excellent gas, superfine chaos.33

The nihilation of the body is the Tantalic’s way to freedom; it is liberation by communion with nothingness. Belacqua detests the dawn because it symbolizes birth.34 Similarly one of the tramps in Waiting for Godot plaintively expresses sorrow for being born. This brings to mind the participant’s quest, in our model, for the reversal of birth in order to regain the nothingness of precreation. Indeed, Murphy longed for an “embryonal repose,” Beckett’s favorite position of rest. Returning to the womb and regaining the omnipresence of non-being seems to be the Tantalic aim of Beckett and his characters. This quest is presented by Beckett as a possible way out of the impasse of being thrown into this world by an absent God. Moreover according to Beckettean metaphysics, Godot does not come, nor does he need to. The longing for his appearance is enough to sustain Divine revelation within the spatio-temporal existence. A form of religious thought prevalent among mystics across denominations holds that God is never silent or absent because He is everpresent in us and He reveals Himself to us through our innermost being. God is silent or absent if we seek Him outside of us in our objective surroundings, but He is ever-present and communicative if we look for Him within us. The foremost contemporary exponent of this view is Kierkegaard. One of his basic philosophical tenets is that “God is a subject, and therefore exists only for subjectivity in inwardness.”35

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Kierdegaard’s extreme participant religious orientation is that each of us is plugged, through his own subjectivity, into the greater subject, which is God. Hence, seeking the external object-bound God is sacrilegious. Only the precreation, non-objective, omnipresence can be projected onto transcendence as the totality of Divine unity which is disrupted, fragmented, and profaned by objective plurality. The only possible revelation is inward renewal, having to do with changes in space or movements in time.36 Whatever accomplishments are made by being preoccupied with the external world, are totally irrelevant for seeking God, whose presence can be revealed only through the self-awareness. Kierkegaard does not deny the reality of spatio-temporality, but leaves it to God.37 Kierkegaard seems to envisage a division of labor. Man immerses himself in his subjectivity and seeks God therein, whereas God deals with the plurality of objects. As God has created spatio-temporality and the plurality of consciousness, He is the one to stir and control them – the individual is not fit or able to do so. This is not just another brand of egoism à la German philosopher, Max Stirner, or author, Ayn Rand, flavored by religion. Kierkegaard admits his despair of comprehending the external world, which should be clear to an omniscient God. All he asks for is to be able to sink into his subjective solitude and try to glean from within his innermost self, some sparks of revelation. The contents of the Mythogenic Structure which links the potentiality of revelation to the actualization of creativity is related grosso modo to participant and separant experience. These are linked, in turn, to both the Sisyphean quest for regaining pre-differentiated unity (by consuming the object and incorporating it into one’s personality) and the Tantalic longing to melt back into the pantheism of early orality are, by definition, unattainable. Hence, these quests for impossible ideals are ingrained into the mythogenes. The Tantalic character, fixated at non-differentiated early orality, projects his God as a monistic omnipresence. The Sisyphean, fixated at later orality, externalizes his deity as a boundless, omnipresent force. Moreover, the later oral fixation of the Sisyphean allows him to identify the “source” of his frustrations. The Sisyphean tends to blame his objective human surroundings for his frustrations in an extrapunitive manner, as conceptualized by Rosenzweig. The inevitable rift between the Sisyphean’s separant ideal of controlling and manipulating his surroundings, in an omnipotent Faustian manner, and his actual competitive achievement, is a continual frustration to him. Such chronic discontent is projected onto transcendence and manifested by the separant deity’s constant need to reinforce His omnipotence. Prayer in many religions include repetitious flatteries and imputations of power,

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wisdom and greatness, as if to placate the potency anxieties projected onto God by His frustrated Sisyphean initiates. The self-effacing Tantalic character is also constantly frustrated, because his quietist ideal of melting back into the omnipresent non-being of unity cannot be realized. Imputing the causes of his frustration to himself, he projects a less than perfect image onto transcendence. This is illustrated by the Kabbalist God, who cannot prevent the catastrophe of the breaking of the cosmic vessels, thereby allowing evil to be created. The separant core vector manifests itself in creation, corporeality and developmental growth, whereas the participant vector seeks a reversal to the non-corporeal spirituality of non-being. This may account for the mind-body controversy raging in philosophy, even today. The personality core vectors enable a better understanding of the object manipulating Sisyphean materialist claims about the exclusiveness of body-matter, and the Tantalic claims about the “reality” of the spirit-mind. By contrast, metaphysical projections define the misery of temporal existence. In the first phase of separation, man is ejected from the cosy womb and cruelly exposed to the elements. – This is the mytho-empirical Kabbalist catastrophe of the breaking of the vessels. The second phase of separation occurs after the existential coagulation of the separant ego from the pantheistic togetherness of early orality. Mytho-empirically, this is the expulsion from Paradise. God condemns man to a cursed land in which he is to live in sorrow all his temporal life. The third phase of separation, is the cruel rite of passage from childhood to puberty. The mytho-empirical anchor is the normative sacrifices of Isaac and Iphigenia. These phases of separation imply that temporal existence is marked by the ejection from the uterine wholeness and by separation from the family fold. Regaining wholeness and perfection cannot be accomplished in the present, but only in the ever after, within the realm of omnipotence and omnipresence. The dialectical quests of the vectors, the things-in-themselves, which are the prime movers of objects and life, cannot be apparent. Only the clashes and synthetic outcomes of the dialectical interaction constitute the apparent reality, the contours and forms of matter and the system-inbalance of life forms and personalities. When the synthetic outcome of each dialectical cycle initiates another cycle it “slips” again into “nonbeing,” only to reappear again in the “being” of reality as the synthesis of another cycle, in an endless Sisyphean-Tantalic process. Hence, the dialectical interaction of teleological, non-realizable quests of the core vectors is the basic energy and the prime mover of being, as embedded in the Mythogenic Structure.

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As we always crave for something we do not have, or to be what we are not, we are living in inauthentic time. The separant vector strives for the future and the participant vector longs for the past. When dominated by these two vectors, man does not exist in the present, and his time is therefore a non-entity, false and inauthentic. If the quests and longings inherent in his core personality vectors cannot be fulfilled, there is a constant, inevitable rift between man’s aspirations and expectations and his perceived reality. Hence, man is ever confronted by the absurd. This dual impasse of inauthenticity and the absurd makes the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus so central to the human condition that we can rightly consider them meta-myths. The initial inauthenticity of man’s existence in the world and his inevitable experience of the absurd constitute the existential impasse from which creativity and revelation are able to extricate him. Creativity is thus the modus vivendi of Sisyphus with his stone burden, and revelation is the means by which Tantalus can go on living within his predicament. Man thus starts as a failure, yet through his ability to sublimate his unrealized quests into creativity and revelation, he is able to transform his initial impasse into authentic experience and existence. It seems that our programmer, be it God, chance, evolution or the devil, has programmed us to yearn for goals that can never be achieved; to long to be different to what we are at a given time and place; to cherish the present but to long either for earlier developmental phases and for nonbeing in the past, or for the away-and-beyond of the future. Out unrealistic quests control us. Our programmer apparently intends to see how our Sisyphean quests and our impossible Tantalic longings can become creativity and revelation. Both the separant and the participant need to sustain their quests and longings to be creative and revelatory. We have seen that both creativity and revelation are dynamic processes fueled by Sisyphean aims and Tantalic longings, which can never be fulfilled. If they were, our yearnings would be extinguished and our potential for authentic being through creativity and revelation would die with them. Thus, the impasse of unfulfilled aims and the inevitable absurd rift between expectations and reality is transformed from a curse into a blessing. Moreover, the complementarity between our unfulfilled Sisyphean pursuits and Tantalic longings, as infused in mythogenes, are our prime movers; without them we are dead. In The Spire, William Golding describes a builder’s quest to pierce a hole in the sky with the spire of a cathedral, thus depicting the essence of Sisyphean aspirations and the core of the builder’s being.38 The visions of grandeur that swell within us while listening to Beethoven’s

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Eroica, and the feeling of melting into the totality of unity while deep in prayer are not just incidental or peripheral processes; they are all there is. They are the things-in-themselves. We recapitulate what we have stated before that although the creative process starts with a revelation in the inner self, the actual structuring of the mythogene is a dialogic dynamic. The ani, the “pure self,” interacts with the avataric transcendental reflection which results in the Mythogenic Structure which is then embedded in the work of creation. The process of creativity extricates the lonely inner self from its nearly solipsistic isolation. Through the mythogene, the muses in his heart are exported into the work of art for all to perceive and admire and, perchance, to experience a dialogue or an authentic encounter with kindred souls. The link of revelation, which is synchronic and a-historic, to creativity, which happens in history by means of the mythogene, bridges these two models of temporal being which are otherwise separated by an impenetrable veil. Likewise, the liaison between subject and object in the maieutic, roundabout way effected by the mythogene in an authentic process of revelation and creativity. This gives meaning to our existence which suffers from an absurd rift between our inner longings for dialogue and the silence of God. Creativity is first and foremost a longing and a means of communication, as envisaged by Tolstoy.39 The longing of the thinking, feeling, and above all, suffering self to communicate with kindred souls “out there” – those who would hopefully feel with him, cry and laugh with him by means of maieutic dialogue through his creation and thus extricate him from his ontological loneliness. Another important dynamic is the procedure of creativity that starts with the structuring of participant longing and separant experience into the mythogene which originates as an intra-psychic structure. This mythogene is then embedded in creation, which is extraneous to the individual creator. Hence authentic creativity linking the individual with his objective and human surroundings is the mechanism which constructs, by means of the mythogene, a viable ontological bridge between subject and object synchronicity and diachronicity. This link between the psyche of the creator through the mythogene embedded in the work of art and exposed to the audience lends meaning to the artistic relationship with his audience and vice versa. It seems that this ontological liaison between subjective revelation and objective creativity is necessary for the generation of culture. Also this Trinitarian association seems to be evolutionary viable otherwise it would have disappeared aeons ago. The creative process is basically an object-involved relationship. It entails reaching out towards an object or life-form in order to mold it, and

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imprint one’s visions onto it. Hence, creativity comprises the wish to communicate with external entities, and often constitutes the sole means of doing so. Although as we have mentioned the participant, revelatory experience lends a dimension of depth to the creative act, the revelation in itself, even if structured into what seems to be a creation, is very rarely communicable. The inner visions of Nicholas Cusanus, for instance, were no doubt very meaningful to him, but others must take his revelatory experience as an article of faith, which is not communicable to them by direct symbolic means. A Bedouin wailing in the desert does not necessarily intend his monotonous incantations to reach anybody’s ears, but only wishes to broadcast his inner moods, passions and beliefs, which then hover aimlessly over sand dunes and searing undulations of light, to be born and scattered by the scorching winds of the desert. Artaud meant to communicate his surrealistic experiences, but failed because he assaulted his own cognition and that of others with awareness-numbing rituals. He then tried to transmit his artistic messages directly to the inner selves of the members of his audience,40 but this proved impossible because communication is effected, if at all, by symbolic interaction between cognitions. Intuition may be the igniting spark of creativity, but in order to be communicative, a creation must be structured, stylized, and intentionally displayed. Indeed, the need to communicate through art, and the ability to do so, is the raison d’être of creativity. Many have contested this conviction, expressed inter alia by Tolstoy.41 We hold, however, that the essence of creativity is a man-world complementarity, and hence an interactive quest to reach out and communicate. Sisyphus without his stone is only half the cast of the creative drama. The dialectical strain between creator and object is what constitutes the ecstasy, enthusiasm, and euphoric strife of creativity. Sisyphus incommunicado is a solipsistic masturbator. If man is unable to communicate, he is likely to become violent.42 Since creativity is a prime mode of communication, it might well be an antidote to violence. Unlike the Buberian conception of reaching out towards the object as a baseline for a dialogical relationship between man and the world, we envisage creativity as a real bridge of complementarity between man and object. By imbuing the artistic medium with his mythogenes and molding it as his creation, man the creator, the Homo faber, entwines his psyche with the object. Authentic creativity thus provides a bypass to the psychophysical antinomy between the self and its surroundings. The Marxists claim that man is alienated from the object because he does not own the means of its production. This is akin to saying that Sisyphus cannot be creatively involved with his stone because he does not own it. Authentic

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creativity is not related to possession. A collector may own all the items he displays, but he is usually dependent on an audience to appreciate his collection. He is therefore petrified by a Buberian I-It relationship with his collection. On the other hand, a prisoner who does not own even the shirt on his back, and is constrained by the most stifling routines, may yet find creative outlets. Indeed, Sisyphus was a prisoner, yet he managed (in his moments of authenticity, having liberated himself from the yoke of the generalized other), to carve a creative reprieve out of his stone, and relegate himself to synchronic eternity. The creator seeks to communicate through his creation with kindred spirits, who can absorb and appreciate the music in his heart as structured in his art. Often a creator believes that only a select few are worthy of his art and able to appreciate it. T. E. Lawrence printed a first edition of only 60 copies of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, to be sent to those who, he hoped, would be able to understand his philosophical, artistic and experiential messages. Even Kafka, who wrote “for his drawer,” and Erich Neumann, who declared that he was compelled to write even if nobody read him, wished that one day in the future someone who could understand might pick up their writings and absorb their messages. Communication would thus be effected outside the confines of temporality. The moment a work of art, the authenticity of which raises it ecstatically (in the Greek sense) onto synchronicity, meets the eye or ear of an individual, its timeless meaning and value are immediately reinforced – to both the artist and audience. A new, timeless, Mythogenic Structure is also generated between the artist and each person in the audience, through the work of art. These Mythogenic Structures are not only timeless, but they are also unique to each encounter. The sui generis bio-psycho-social configuration of every individual, when exported to the work of art, creates an irreplaceable relationship which dents the cosmos uniquely and is relegated to the Authentic Domain forever. When an artist experiences a revelation and structures an authentic mythogene, that mythogene embeds a particle of eternity in creation. The artist’s revelation and extasis (in the Greek sense) lifts his consciousness from diachronicity to synchronicity which makes the mythogene authentic. This process is reversed with an individual in the audience “opens up” to the creation. He then experiences an enthousiasmos (also in the Greek sense), by which the mythogene embedded in the creation flows into the psyche of the individual and imbues him maieutically with the same elation experienced by the artist at the time of the creation. The communication cycle between artist and audience is thus complete.

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For the artist, authentic creativity is, first and foremost, a means of extracting himself from ontological loneliness. Mozart’s concerto for flute and harp, for instance, portrays the composer’s quest for a dialogue by the intricate, entwined annulations of the flute minuetting with the desperate plucking of the harp’s strings. The duets of the sopranos in Le Nozze di Figaro seem to have mesmerized the whole inmate population in the movie, Shawshank Redemption. In Caravaggio’s masterpiece, David with the Head of Goliath (in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy) we have a fusion of the two types of time. There is the diachronic time of Caravaggio, with Goliath ravaged by the temporal hazards of drink, drugs, sex and violence; and the pure sacred time of Caravaggio’s David, exuding a longing for compassion, grace and salvation for everyone, including his corrupt decapitated alter ego. Caravaggio the artist is the anthropic site within whom the mortal conflicts are resolved, momentarily at least, while engaging in the art of creativity; he becomes the mediator, the son of God passing the barrier between the agonies of the here-and-now and the bliss of the ever-after. In the process, his inner “black hole” is patched, glossed and bridged-over for another cycle of Sisyphean creativity, until the stone-burden rolls down in another binge of violent self-destruction, only for the artist to bend down and start pushing the Sisyphean rock upwards in the creative dialogue, da capo. The artist, through his dialogue with his object via the artistic medium, creates a new reality which is not only his own and within history, but also Divine through the creative, authentic domain. The desire to create structures the revelation of the mythogenes, which in turn effected the fiat lux, the miraculous luminosity, of his art. Vincent Van Gogh believed that in himself he was worth nothing; only his relationships with the objects and people he painted gave meaning to his existence, and to theirs. This is in line with the Buberian philosophy that the “I” or the “thou”, or for that matter the “it”, are but inchoate entities. Only the I-Thou and the I-It are entire ontological existentials. These relationships are effected by art, if authentic. Hence, creative authenticity is the key to entering the spirituality of nature, the means of being unified with the whole of Creation. Indeed, Vincent’s art was his sole means of expressing love and his need to be loved by people, nature and God, and by whoever kept rejecting him. He conducted a dialogue with his tools- his brushes, paints and crayons. He attributed a soul to his crayons. It reminds one of the dialogue Buber carried out with his walking stick and the spiritual rapport he achieved through it with a tree.43 The animistic link Vincent felt with

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nature explains the dancing and whirling trees, and stars infused with the painter’s own jittery soul and trembling psyche. In his work, Vincent demonstrated how one element of nature can be related to another in one pulsating whole. He unified his consciousness with matter through the mythogenes he embedded in his drawings and canvases. Art and life are thus a single entity; Vincent adopted the ideals of Puvis de Chavannes, according to which art should serve as a unifying agent of man and nature. For Vincent, however, art was more: he intended to use it to reach through the “universal thou” – the Buberian God in nature and man. This was the existential God created through the artistic dialogue of man and nature, to supersede the stern God of the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent was always attuned to nature and tried to ingrain himself into it by means of his penetrating brush strokes. Such infusion into the unseen layers of nature was Vincent’s manner of reaching the Divine inner essence of the trees, meadows and human figures. He reprimanded painters who paint from pictures and memory, as well as the critics who never bothered to immerse themselves in nature. Vincent’s desire for dialogue with God and other human beings was incessant and total. He thus suffered from what we denoted elsewhere as “the least interest principle,” which operates in most dyadic human interaction. If one desperately wishes to sell, the buyer shies away. If one wishes to be popular with one’s membership group, making frantic efforts to gain acceptance, more often than not the result will be rejection. Finally, if one tries to force one’s point of view on another by vociferous attempts at persuasion, one is liable to be cold-shouldered and scorned. Vincent suffered all these hurts. The only realm accepting his total involvement was his art. He knew that the love of art is the sublimation of the love of man. But he knew that for him it was not a matter of choice, since the love of art was the sole emotional outlet open to him. Still, his most ardent wish was to achieve a dialogue with a kindred soul through his work, since he felt that he could achieve a wonderful harmony, a rapport of grace, with nature through his paintings and wanted to transmit this rapport to another human being. He was a sharer; he wished another to partake of the ecstasy, the joy, the meaningfulness which art brought him. This was why he was so vulnerable to the likes of Gauguin, who could have had an authentic dialogue with him, but chose instead to take advantage of and manipulate him. The lack of dialogue may be linked to an I-It petrification and the acceptance of the condemning labels of the generalized other, à la Sartre’s “hell is the other”. This may lead to a sense of failure and suicidal melancholy, which indeed is what eventually happened to Vincent.

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Vincent learned from the Japanese the quality in painting of “soul,” the means by which the artist articulates his aesthetic criteria, embedding them in the artistic product. In our conceptualization, this “soul” is the mythogene structured by the artist into the artistic medium. Hence, the mythogene is the vehicle of dialogue between the artist, the artistic medium and the audience. If art is authentic, the mythogene is synchronic, and lifts the artist, the artistic medium, and its viewers, onto eternity. However, the dialogic link is, perforce, maieutic. Thus, Vincent structured his mythogenes through his unique bio-psycho-social configuration: his genetic potential, his stormy “black hole” personality, and his upbringing in the Dutch Reformed Church. The author has experienced the maieutic impact of Vincent’s work; he was completely mesmerized by his paintings in the Vincent van Gogh Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The author’s biopsycho-social configuration could not be farther removed from Vincent’s: his bio-genetic background is Slavic, his personality related to a depressive mother and to a father who was a stubborn, ascetic, idealistic pioneer. His socialization was in a Jewish, Zionist, socialist environment in Mandatory Palestine and later Israel. However, the synchronic mythogenes within Vincent’s paintings gripped him with such force that he remained transfixed by them, entirely entranced within them, irresistibly drawn to them for endless hours, until forcibly dragged away from the museum by a traveling companion. This is the most complete possible dialogue over time, place, personalities and cultures through the authentic art of an offbeat genius. Vincent regarded his models as maieutic catalysers between his consciousness and his paintings. Hence, his models were of paramount importance to him. He chose them very carefully- they had to be central to his person, ideas and beliefs. One such model was Dr. Gachet, the enlightened therapist from the asylum at Auvers-sur-Oise. A precursor for Harry Stack Sullivan, Ronald Laing and Michel Foucault, Dr. Gachet became a friend to Vincent, who wrote (in letters W22; L638) to his sister: I have found a true friend in Gachet, rather like a brother, so great is the physical and even mental resemblance between us. He himself is a nervous, eccentric man. He has given numerous proofs of friendship to the artists of the new school, and has been of service to them whenever it was in his liking for orgiastic language. He described the artist himself a sort of intoxicated giant, better equipped to move mountains than to toy with brica-brac, a seething brain irresistibly pouring forth its lava into all the gorges of Art, a terrible and half-mad genius, frequently sublime, sometimes grotesque, at all times very nearly sick.44

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Vincent’s portrayal of Dr. Gachet45 indeed reflects his deep affinity, understanding and admiration of the doctor, who also radiates reciprocity towards the painter. His painting Old Man in Sorrow is an attempt to reach a dialogue with an old depressive catatonically oblivious to his surroundings.46 Vincent’s portrayal of the old man’s utter despair and dejection cannot be described in words. The dialogue in misery of the old melancholic and Vincent is transmitted to us with unparalleled force. In the Raising of Lazarus, Vincent utilized the technique perfected by Caravaggio, in which model and painter coincide. St. Lazarus has Vincent’s face,47 so that the dialogue, indeed the identification of the mythogene in the artistic medium, effects a perfect match. With Lazarus, Vincent suffered a diachronic death, but in it, he is resurrected into synchronicity to live with us forever. Vincent believed that art would bring him close to nature and to “something on high – inconceivable, awfully unnamable – for it is impossible to find a name for that which is higher than nature.”48 Painting from nature, unlike the academic artists who painted from memory, books and other media, Vincent carried on a dialogue with the trees, flowers and fields he mythogenically ingrained in his canvases. In letter 228: I see that nature has spoken to me, has told me something that I have written down in shorthand. My shorthand may contain words that are indecipherable- but some of what the forest or shore or figure said still remains.49

But he also reached God with his art – the deity he so ardently courted while preaching in the mines in the village of Borinage, but who painfully evaded him. It seems that Vincent structured his unrequited longing for God and the transcendental into mythogenes he embedded into his paintings. In this he followed the Hassidic Jewish notion of “worship in the concrete,” the beatification of art and artifacts by embedding into them sparks of Divinity strewn in the mires of history and “lifted up” by the creator of the most mundane objects. With each brush stroke, Vincent ingrained his longing for God into mythogenes, and thence into his canvases. Vincent was engaged in his staccato creativity while renouncing, in a Kierkegaardean manner, any goals within history. Hence, his creativity became a pure process. As long as he could renounce ulterior motives, he was immune from despair. Only when he was dragged into temporal ambitions and utopias, like the artists’ commune in Arles, did he court disaster. His anchoring on the process of art led him to ingrain the fleeting moment within synchronicity. He thus discovered through his art the

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means to reveal, in the Heideggerean sense, the flow of eternity within history, and the link between the two. Vincent wrote Theo: “Fortunately for me, I do not hanker for victory and more, and all that I seek in painting is a way to make life bearable.”50 This is the process of art pure and simple- the creative endeavors of a Camusean Sisyphus, which extricate him from the drudgeries of routines, the vicissitudes of subsistence and the vileness of mediocrity. His interest was in art itself and not its temporal rewards. Hence, he had a latent horror of success, although he wanted to sell his paintings to cover his debts and expenses, but nothing more. This was the Jonah syndrome of a subconscious wish to avoid recognition – he committed suicide just about when his chips started to turn up, with a gradual yet steady public interest in his work. First and foremost, Vincent was a lover, an existentialist lover loving the other on the other’s terms. One he fell in love with his prostitute model, Sien, he tried to blot out his own ego and be concerned empathetically with her passions, desires and grief. He was genuinely delighted when his companion, who gave him gonorrhea, gave birth to a child who was not his. He cried with joy at his perceived happiness for Sien delivering a baby. This is the epitome of existentialist identification with the emotions of the other, while blotting out one’s own ego vis-à-vis the other. His love of the outcast prostitute was total, while rejecting the reprimands, rejection and ostracism of his family and colleagues. It was nobody’s business to alert Don Quixote that Dolcinea was a two-bit whore, if for him she was the queen of his dreams. Vincent’s one-sided love affairs were quite Kierkegaardean, since he all but renounced reciprocity; his love must be absolute and invulnerable. To all his approaches and supplications, another lover, Kee Voss, reacted with adamant refusal. She sent back his letters, unopened, but he remained undaunted. He wrote Theo: “Life has become very dear, and I am very glad that I love. My life and my love are one. Her [Kee Voss] ‘No nevernever-never’ I regard as a block of ice which I press to my heart to thaw.”51 This is an infatuation with love as a goal in itself. As in his art, nothing less than the absolute is acceptable to Vincent. And an absolute love would be tarnished by acceptance. Rejected, Vincent could use Kee’s “no, never-never” as a cross of ice to reenact the passion of another reject crying Eli, Eli lama shabakhtany. For Vincent, the cross is tangible, ever present. Love, even if unrequited, gives life a meaning that in our terms would structure mythogenes of both longing and experience to be embedded in art. Vincent’s art, rejected no less than his love, became a labor of grace flowing from the lover-artist – sublimated into mythogenes

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embedded in the artistic medium and resurrected in all those attuned to his timeless wavelength. Altman’s movie ingeniously depicts Vincent cutting his tongue and inserting it while dripping blood in the gaping mouth of Gauguin, who cringes with fear and disgust. Yet for Vincent, it was the ultimate in the meeting of body and soul. The very same shattered emotions structured by a Munch into his Le Cri, the howls of an Ivan Illich embedded by Tolstoy in the Death of Ivan Illitch, and Gesualdo’s tortured anguish framed in his madrigals also reach us, since they have been catapulted into authentic mythogenes and thence onto timeless synchronicity, where a maieutic dialogue between artist and audience could, and should, occur. Vincent’s renunciation of the fulfillment of his quests, longings and loves, so that they could be structured in his art, is his major spiritual sacrifice, aside from the sacrifice of his health. He thus became the first saint of modern art, a role denied him when he aimed to martyr himself for the Borinage miners. Likewise, Vincent the artist-saint bridged the abyss between nature and the Authentic Domain through art; he mediated through the mythogenes embedded in his paintings between his own quests and ours, so that the rich, ecstatic convulsions of his martyred soul pump grace into all who open up to his genius. We may even suspect that with his autistic solitude, he even created a virtual viewer to whom he wrote and with whom he could carry on a viable dialogue. Thus Vincent wrote Theo: And in my opinion it cannot be helped that we are in different camps opposed to each other. And whether we like it or not, you must go on, it must go on. But as we are brothers, let us avoid killing each other, for instance (in the figurative sense). But we cannot help each other as much as two people who are standing side by side in the same camp. No, if we should come near each other, we should be within each other’s range. My sneers are bullets, not aimed at you who are my brother, but in general at the party to which you belong once and for all. Nor do I consider your sneers aimed expressly at me, but you fire at the barricade and think to gain merit by it, and I happen to be there.52

What a dichotomy! The money-conscious Theo, Vincent’s care-taker in vis-à-vis the outside world, is worlds apart from him, yet is the first audience of Vincent’s art, the soul brother to whom Vincent sent sketches of every drawing, watercolor and painting, before they were actually executed. Vincent immersed himself in his art. Perfecting the technique of embedding his mythogenes of longing and experience with staccato speed onto his canvases, and returning home to his monastic abode, he would fall

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on his bed exhausted. He needed nobody and nothing beside his art. But then hubris crept in. He sought a dialogue not through synchronic eternity in the Authentic Domain, but within diachronic history, right here and now! His target was Paul Gauguin, not a mediocrity, not a Salieri to Vincent’s Mozart. Gauguin was a talented artist in his own right, but personally the two could not have been more different. Their divergence is epitomized by the two chairs we have already mentioned. Paul’s armchair is of lacquered, multicolored wood; Vincent’s of roughly hewn logs, coarse, grained and unpainted. Paul’s chair has lordly arms. Vincent’s is a lowly peasant’s, tough and ascetic. The back of Paul’s chair is arched for comfort and expensive hedonism. Vincent’s chair is structured for suffering, Paul’s for sophistication, poetry and leadership. Vincent’s is a chair of the provincial, luckless and lusterless laborer: a hard-up artisan whose only pleasure in an otherwise miserable existence is an occasional tobacco pipe. And with this person Vincent sought a dialogue, not through the maieutic authenticity of his art, but within the drudgery of everyday life, exacerbated by financial problems and his own temperamental eccentricities. Vincent sought in Paul the bosom friend he never had. Theo was his only lifeline, but Theo did not really understand Vincent or his art. Paul would penetrate both his convoluted, tortured soul, and his art, so similar to his own. He also longed for feedback from fellow painters as to the extrinsic value of his work. His art gave meaning to his life, but did it give similar meaning to the lives of others? He needed, so to speak, an Archimedean point, provided by another professional painter. He remembered with pride that once a painter entered his studio by chance and looked at a drawing on an easel, and spontaneously uttered, “This is vigorously drawn and seriously studied.”53 This kind of support and, if need be, critical yet always candid feedback, was what Vincent hoped to receive from Paul Gauguin. He also felt a deep affinity with Gauguin because of his tribulations comparing them to his own. He enumerated the similarities between himself and Gauguin: their unseen sensitivities and their misunderstood, poetic qualities. His expectations from their encounter soared higher each day, until their heights were altogether out of touch of reality. Symbolically, the two chairs remained empty: the potentiality for dialogue remained unfulfilled. Vincent’s openness to a meeting of souls with Gauguin was true to his character, his expectation from the encounter utopian. Yet Vincent’s quest for dialogue and his expectations of it were not shared by Gauguin. Vincent wrote to Paul about the plans for the

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artists’ commune in Arles with Gauguin as its poet-leader. As such, he would need comforts and status symbols. Gauguin’s plans were simpler – Theo, the simpleton’s brother, of the renowned Goupil & Co. art dealers, would sell his pictures. He would ask Theo to pay his debts, and in exchange he would spend some time with his weird brother. Having been a stock exchange dealer, he knew how to strike a hard bargain. One day he promised to come to Arles, the next he announced that he unfortunately couldn’t come, the third day, with the subtlety of an elephant in a china shop, that he could come only if some pressing, financial problems were solved. As for Vincent, everything was in suspended animation until Paul came. He decorated Paul’s room to his liking, and borrowed money to put in new drawers, and to fix the bed, because Gauguin had a bad back. With the “Second Coming,” when Paul the artistic savior came, Vincent aimed to decorate the walls of the studio with sunflowers- the expression of the van Gogh mythogene of resurrection. The commune of artists headed by Gauguin would be monastic, with art as its religion. Vincent wrote to Theo that the master to emulate would be Millet, the painter of rural nature, a Puritan and a great believer in God – what the Puritans were of old, such would be the painters of today.54 He also assumed the role of the Good Samaritan, helping Gauguin out of his quandary, like Corot, who helped the downtrodden and dejected Daumier. Vincent wrote to Gauguin: I think that if, from now on, you begin to feel like the head of the studio, which we shall try to turn into a refuge for many- little by little, as our strenuous work furnishes us with the means to complete the thing- I think that then you will feel more or less comforted after the present miseries of poverty and illness, taking into consideration that probably we shall be giving our lives for a generation of painters that will last a long while. The part of the country where I live has already seen the cult of Venus- in a Greece essentially artistic- and after that the poets and artists of the Renaissance. Where such things could flourish, impressionism will too. I have expressly made a decoration for the room you will be staying in, a poet’s garden (among the sketches Bernard has there is a first rough draft of it, later simplified). The ordinary public garden contains plants and shrubs that make one dream of landscapes in which one likes to imagine the presence of Boticelli, Giotto, Pertrach, Dante and Bocaccio. In the decoration I have tried to disentangle the essential from what constitutes the immutable character of the country.55

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The artists’ colony could also be a therapeutic community. “Ah, my dear friend”, wrote Vincent (letter 573a to Gauguin, “to make of the art of painting what the music of Berlioz and Wagner already is – an art of consolation for broken hearts.”56 The Arles centre for art therapy would cure souls and console hearts, with Gauguin as its grand master and Vincent its jack of all trades, from mixer of paint to caterer to the slightest whim of the absolute arbiter elegantium. But above all, they would paint together. It would break their respective solitudes, forge their relationship and continuous dialogue, and revolutionize the world’s conception of art for generations to come. Gauguin shared nothing of Vincent’s visions. All he intended was to spend two months with crazy Vincent in Arles, as the price of the coolheaded Theo paying off his debts and selling his paintings.57 This was the betrayal of Christ by Judas for some piece of lucre; it was also the martyrdom and passion of modern art’s foremost saint. Gauguin’s betrayal led not only to the dispersal of the vision of the artist’s utopia, but also to the insanity and suicide of art’s purest idealist and most selfless prophet. Gauguin tried later to play down his role in Vincent’s destruction, but his apologies are post facto excuses. The truth is to be gleaned from Vincent’s letters; unlike Gauguin, Vincent was incapable of lying, and stated plainly that Paul was the trigger of his loss of sanity. Vincent expected Gauguin to give him feedback as to the value of his work, and considered him the only man who could do so. But not only did Gauguin not provide such supporting evaluation, he actually downgraded Vincent’s work. In so doing, he not only shattered Vincent’s self-respect, but also the meaning of his life. Gauguin left Arles on Christmas Eve without telling Vincent, and it was then that Art’s Prophet was anointed by the blood from his ear and the oblation of his sanity to the higher revelation of the dialogue between art, life and the Authentic Domain in transcendence. The present author’s mentor, Martin Buber, once told his students that in Hebrew violence (alimut) and silence (elem) stem from the same root. Hence, when there is no possibility for dialogue, when the routes for a meeting of minds are blocked, the almost sole alternative is violence. This struck many of Buber’s students at the time as a most insightful revelation. It certainly applied to the relationship between Vincent and Paul. The first opened up completely, unequivocally and without reservation, expecting a Buberean I-Thou dialogue. The other had a manipulative I-It attitude from the outside. Hence, no dialogue could have ensued and the resulting violence demeaned, blemished and martyred the innocent Vincent. Creativity is basically a Sisyphean dynamic. It involves the projection and imposition of the goals of Ego’s personality core vectors onto his

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objective and human surroundings by means of the Structured Mythogene. Hence, whatever ideals Ego might have in its core vectors of perfection, aesthetics, harmony, order, and omnipotence are first processed dialectically through intrapsychic revelatory dynamics in order to generate the mediating mythogene. The separant and participant vectors within the personality interact constantly to produce a mental system-in-balance, which is then imprinted with Tantalic or Sisyphean core patterns into the mythogene. This configuration, which is a far cry dialectically from the original goals of the core personality vectors, influences Ego’s perception of its surroundings. However, this aesthesis, which is Greek for “perception,” and which was used by Baumgarten to denote the whole field of aesthetics,58 makes for a unique and sui generis conception of how and what Ego’s creative involvement should be. When Ego projects its specific image of aesthetics, order, and instrumentation on the object by means of the Mythogenic Structure it aims to be creatively involved with, it is not likely to be shared by others. This makes for a variety of styles and forms of creativity, as well as for differences in individual tastes. A direct corollary of this basic premise is that creative effort, as initially envisioned by Ego, is never realized. Furthermore, when the aesthetic or instrumental system-in-balance as envisioned by Ego is projected by means of the mythogene onto the object and creatively applied to it, the result is bound to be a dialectical synthesis different from the initial vision. Hence, creativity is a truly Sisyphean task, in which the creator cannot be satisfied with the end product. Therefore, he is constantly prodded to try new involvements with his object-stone, so that hopefully the next attempt will mold it into the vision of the aesthetic system-in-balance in his mind, as ingrained in the Mythogenic Structure. This system-in-balance, alas, never comes into fruition, in the same way that Sisyphus can never succeed in balancing his stone on the summit of the hill. Yet, this apparent failure is the motivating fuel of creativity. The author’s own creative involvement is spurred by his dissatisfaction with his previous completed venture, which seemed to him his magnum opus while still immersed in it. This brings us to our notion of authentic creativity. First, authenticity as related to creativity - can only be a process. The efforts and strain of creative involvement can be authentically absorbing, but they are not the end product. If Ego is obsessed with the final product, it is bound to be disappointed. Achievements are filed and forgotten, and if the process is not rewarding, then Ego’s creativity is inauthentic. The balancing of the Sisyphean stone on the apex of the mount is not only impossible, but futile from the point of view of creativity. It is only the climb or aesthetic

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descent that can be authentic, not the public acclaim (which never lasts) for being at the top, or the clever overpricing of an art object to a wealthy tourist. The participant component of creativity is inherent in its revelatory aspect, which shines forth from the inner self by means of the mythogene. This discovery may be projected onto an object or another person and make them glow with a sudden disclosure of meaning, worth or fulfillment. Worshipping in the concrete has other manifestations. Henry Thoreau built his hut beside Walden Pond, where he felt a dialogical affinity with the woods, air, water and stars. Camus’s heroes find their Sisyphean raison d’être in being able to create, save and cure in the midst of the existential plague. Chomsky even proposes that the dialectical involvement with language is the base line of creativity. The creator thus tries to build a bridge between himself and the word as the object. The Hebrew poet, Shlonsky went to the extent of claiming that he never used a word, in his poems unless he had made love to it. If, indeed, creativity is spurred by a core need to communicate, how is communication through creativity effected? We hold that the creator transmits to his audience, through his creation or performance, the intensity and sincerity of longing and experience, as structured in the mythogenes ingrained in the artistic medium. The audience perceiving the work of art may feel catalysis and a similar longing and experience. However, the Mythogenic Structures of the artist and the individuals in the audience, as determined by their unique bio-psycho-cultural configuration, are bound to be different, yet, the coincidence of their yearnings in time lends them a sense of communication, effected by their common elation. Thus, James Galway, playing his flute for an Israeli audience, may be elated by the visions of green pastures, smiling Irish eyes and laughter. The music may arouse different yearnings in the members of his audience, according to the specific aims of their personality core vectors. One may long for the red mountains of Eilat, another for the blue heat of Lake Tiberias in the summer, and a third for the black eyes and olive skin of Yemenite girls. Thus, common longing and experience, mythogenically structured by the artist within the artistic medium, and transmitted maieutically to the audience by the performance or work of art creates the sense of communication, irrespective of the wide discrepancies in the contents of the yearnings of the different members of the audience. It is necessary, however, that the artist be authentic and intensively sincere for his art to spur a communicative elation in his audience. Without this, his performance is liable not to “pass,” but to leave his audience cold.

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In all probability, the structured common denominator of communication through art is effected by the revelatory component of creativity infused in the mythogene, which is linked in turn to the participant components of the self; it is these which are closer to the common core-awareness of all human beings. Thus, paradoxically, the Tantalic revelatory core experience is instrumental in effecting a sense of communion through the basically Sisyphean process of creativity. As the creative potential of each individual is unique, the mode, medium and contents of each individual’s creativity have their own specific optimum. If an individual has heeded the call to authenticity and embarked on a search for rebellious, creative expression, he still has to find the mode and medium of creativity optimally suited to his specific psycho-social configuration. As the creative potential of each individual is unique, the mode, medium and contents of each individual’s creativity have their own specific optimum. If an individual has heeded the call to authenticity and embarked on a search for rebellious, creative expression, he still has to find the mode and medium of creativity optimally suited to his specific psycho-social configuration. He may accomplish this by intuition or by trial and error, or he may fail to find it even after an arduous search. Uncertainties may plague the artist even if he has found a mode of creative expression, and the optimal medium of creativity for any individual may change with time and place. He may not be aware of having found his one optimal mode of expression and may let Maeterlinck’s blue-bird fly away from his own porch. Most people do not feel they have found the optimal modes and media of creative expression suitable to their talents and artistic potential. Others may not be satisfied with what they find and are ever searching for new methods, modes and areas of creativity. Again, the search for the right mode of creative expression is part of the never-ending Sisyphean dynamic of Ego’s creative involvement with its objective surrounding objects and life forms. This search in itself may be one expression of man’s authentic existence. Although each individual has a unique mode of expression, one cannot equate, compare or relate the personality of the creator with his creation. This is so because man’s creations are the dialectical involvement of the goals of his personality core vectors with objects and life forms through the Mythogenic Structure. The disjunction between the personality of the creator and his creation relates to the process of authentic creativity, which is kindled by the unattainable goals of man’s core vectors. These are the dreams, longings, passions, visions, and ideals, which are projected onto, and ingrained and imbued into, a mythogene and then into an object or event. However, the actual person, who is also the creator, is bound to be

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different in most aspects from the images, ideals and goals of his personality core vectors. The final creation, being the dialectical product of the projected quests of Ego’s core vectors is also inevitably different from both the goals of the personality vectors and the initial object with which they interact. Often, meeting an artist is a disappointment as the artist is so different from his art. The audience should realize that there is an inevitable rift between man and his creations. This disjunction is necessary to generate the dialectical strain, which partially spurs the process of creativity itself. People who lament what seems to them an incomprehensible antinomy – that a cruel liar like Richard Wagner could create a colossal work of genius like The Ring of the Nibelungen – have succumbed to the fallacy of confounding creator with creation. This was understood by Strindberg, who made his character, Voltaire, voice the dictum that his life’s work is in the public domain, to be appreciated or condemned by man, but the morals, appearance and behavior of the old mule (meaning himself) were irrelevant. In his preface to the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus invited us “to live and to create in the very midst of the desert.”59 This is precisely what his protagonists, Rieux tries to cure the sick, Grand begins to write a novel and plants a rose bush in the middle of the swamp. Not knowing the ultimate purpose of their activities, not having any decisive influence on the course of events, Rieux and Grand cling to the life raft of creativity as the only safeguard against the slump of inauthenticity in the anaesthetizing bosom of the generalized other. Grand starts his novel all over again while hoping to complete it ”when all this [the plague] is over.”60 He immerses himself in writing and rewriting its opening sentences while feeling within that the plague will not end and his chances of surviving are nil. Seeking creativity within the plague is transcendental, because it generates an internal force field, which is projected onto the creator’s surroundings and gives his involvement with them a measure of meaning. Indeed, without creativity, mans rat-race in a cutthroat society of achievers are like weasels biting each other in a hole or worms slithering over each other in a heap of excrement. This premise could lend a novel hue to Nietzsche’s dictum that art has been given to man so that he does not die of the truth, i.e., of the numbing reality of the Camusean plague. We project our core personality cravings, quests and longings onto our creation, which extricates us from the plague while we are still affected by it. These projections imbue the creative process with a halo of fulfillment. Without them a violin sonata would be the scratching of horsetail hair on dried catgut. We therefore appreciate creativity and love the art, which is most capable of accepting

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and absorbing the projections of our personality core yearnings and of lifting us out of our Sisyphean drudgery. However, the impossible goals of the personality core vectors are transferred to their projections within the mythogene and to the creation. The authentic creator is never complacent or content with his creation. He constantly searches for new modes of creative expression. There is nothing more effective at killing creativity than the creator feeling that he “has arrived” or “made it.” A Zen story relates how an artist asks a sage when he would know that the butterfly he painted was perfect. The sage answers that when the painter thinks that his work is complete he should gaze at the water, and he would know. When the artist thought that the butterfly he painted was perfect, he glanced at the water and saw his own face, which looked old and decrepit. The moral of the tale is that when the artist feels he has achieved his goal, he either loses his creative potency or slumps into the complacency of extreme inauthenticity. As creativity is the sublimated expression of the goals of the core personality vectors, it manifests itself along the separant–participant continuum. On one extreme we have participant creativity, which aims to melt away into the totality of non-being. This is exemplified by the smoky undulations of oriental torch singers, who aim to make their separate awareness fade away into pre-differentiated omnipresence, and thereby fuse with their objective and human surroundings. The separant creative extremity, on the other hand, is megalomaniac. It craves, à la Wagner, to impose its sweeping images of aesthetics and its engulfing dreams of dominion on its surroundings, and if possible, on the whole world. However, the nature of a continuum is that each polar component interacts, in a manner dependent on its position on the continuum, with the opposite polar components. If the essentially Sisyphean creative process is to be authentic, then the Tantalic revelatory element must be present in it in varying forms, contents, and intensities. Man may also project his creativity onto transcendence to serve a dual purpose. First he may feel, with Berdyaev, that man’s creative work is the fulfillment of the creator’s secret will. The creator may thus feel that he has been programmed to create by God, and that by his creativity he is fulfilling the purpose of his being-in-the-world. Second, by being creative, man may feel that he is imitating the initial act of creation itself, and thus has a sense of partaking in the reflected creative omnipotence of Divinity. By being creative, Sisyphus works himself up to a rebellion against his own meta-physical projections, so that he can lift himself by his own bootstraps out of his existential impasse and achieve an authentic and meaningful involvement with his rock-burden.

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While involved in the creative process, Ego feels dialectical energy flowing out of itself to mold mythogenes and, with them, to engulf or reach the core of the object. This may give one a sense of elation and a feeling of being engaged in one’s magnum opus. Yet after its completion, the creator may suffer post-creation depression, stemming from a sense of emptiness or deflation. This is likely to be related to the cathartic flow of energy from the interacting personality core vectors due to the creative process, and the dialectical strain between recharging the creative energy reservoir, predisposing the creator to another cycle of creativity. This again asserts the essentiality Sisyphean nature of the creative process. However, the Tantalic revelatory component of creativity lends it the depth of uniqueness and the imprint of the creator’s personality, which may be illustrated by a conversation between Arthur Rubinstein and Picasso. The pianist asked the painter, “Why are you sitting day after day in front of the same fence and painting it?” “It is not the same fence,” answered the painter. “It changes every minute.” Revelatory insights are projected into Mythogenic Structures and thence, onto the object and change it constantly. We may, therefore, present the model shown in figure 4.1, which describes the creative process.

Creative

Dialectics

Mythogene

Predisposition

Sisyphean separation

Object

Tantalic participant revelation

Fig 4.1: Situational spatio-temporal context The dynamics predisposing Ego to creativity take place within the psyche. The core vectors interact dialectically to charge the creative batteries. When the “right” trigger occurs, in the form of an “inspiration,” suitable to ignite Ego’s specific bio-psycho-cultural gestalt, the mythogene is structured and the creative process is launched and concentrated towards the object. This triggering inspiration could be anything from the fluttering

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of a woman’s hair in the breeze, to the cry of a bereaved parent. The creative involvement with the object has to occur within the “right” convergence of situational factors ranging from the “right” texture of the sculpture’s stone to the “right” time of the day which inundates the trees to be painted with the “proper” waves of green light. Picasso’s conception of his creativity is an Heraclitean, ever-changing state of creative flux. Indeed, Sisyphean relationship of creativity does not relate to the creator by himself, but to the creative interaction between the two. This interaction, which can never be the same because of the everchanging dynamics within the personality of the creator, renders the Sisyphean object-stone and Picasso’s fence ever-changing in hue, light, texture and meaning for the artist. It should be noted however, that both the body and personality of the creator may be the objects of his creativity. This may range from macabre “body art,” in which the artist mutilates himself in certain patterns, forms and shapes, to Oscar Wilde’s dictum, “I put my talent in my work but my genius in myself.” We have seen that creation represents the quests and goals of the core vectors of each individual creator ingrained in mythogenes. Hence, the works of a separant Kipling are expansionist, trying to incorporate within himself (or within the British Empire, which he sees as an extension of himself) every native, animal, and blade of grass in the jungle. Per contra, the works of a participant Hesse reflect the Tantalic quest to immerse oneself in the totality of non-being. For the separant, creativity serves as a weapon of conquest, achievement, and domination. To him, the pen is a sword and many times mightier, whereas the Tantalic creator uses his art as a vehicle for participant revelation, and for expressing his longing for a fusion with the totality of non-being. Science-fiction writing is not excessively bound by the limitations of space and time. It therefore gives free rein to the writer’s imagination, and also serves as a projective technique for casting the yearnings of the goals of his core vectors onto the Mythogenic Structure and his creation. Most science-fiction novels are pessimistic, reflecting the writers’ elegiac feelings at not being able to fulfill the aims of their core personality vectors. It is of interest to us, however, that science-fiction writing can be classified on our continuum, with one pole representing the wild separant dreams of dominion over galaxies and the omnipotence of traveling through time, whereas the Tantalic extreme represents the longing of the participant to flee this catastrophic world into the bliss of spacelessness and the peace of eternity. Song and music, the most forceful, varied, and sophisticated forms of artistic expression, may also be described along our separant–participant continuum. The sexually suggestive pop of an Elvis Presley sings of

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possessing women, objects, and stars. Failures are lamented by a ressentiment wail, accompanied by savage pelvic thrusts and carnivorous rattles. Spanish flamenco singing, on the other hand, invokes an enchanted fading away, with the muted intervals of silence carrying the singer and listener onto a longed-for voyage into the totality of nothingness. Wagner launched his music back to separant paganism, professedly aiming to extract the participant Jewish element out of Aryan music. His Siegfrieds, Parsifals, and Tristans are engaged in wars, seductions, and manipulations by love potions and deceits. His heroes are a variation on the theme of separant, manipulative, covetous and aggressive Greek Olympians, only more barbaric, heavy-handed and bombastic, as befits the Teutonic Valhalla. On the other hand, Mozart’s Don Giovanni is a Tantalic danse macabre from one bed to another, with the ultimate aim of being thrown into perdition by the stone commander. In purgatory, Don Giovanni can immerse himself in his purely ethereal, eternal love, which is unapproachable in the here-and-now. In painting we have the greedy Tintoretto aiming to incorporate all of Venice into himself, and faute-demieux to cover every ceiling, every facade of the Palazzi, and even every gondola with his paintings.61. Although creators and creations tend to display tendencies towards participation or separation, authentic creation has to be structured within a system-in-balance of separant experience and participant longing as components of the blue print of the mythogene. However, the dosage of each component within the mythogene and the creation, is a complementarity giving the artist or the observer the spine-tingling elation of an aesthetic experience, which is specific to each individual and varies from one culture to another. This accounts for individual and aesthetic tastes, which cannot be arbitrated or communicated to other individuals. In addition, some forms of creativity and art in Sisyphean cultures are incomprehensible to, and hence rejected in, Tantalic revelatory cultures. A case in point is occidental opera, especially the female coloratura voices that are reviled and detested in the Middle East, whereas the undulations of the oriental torch-singers are foreign, monotonous, and distasteful to the occidental ear. Each creation may have many components, aspects, characteristics, and layers, e.g., the technique, method, underlying ideas, or ideological message. Every one of these characteristics, as well as the composition of the whole creation or work of art, is also subject to separant-participant interaction. In the following examples we shall illustrate the flatness of inauthentic, generalized-other-anchored creative endeavors, without the corresponding revelatory participant components. The extreme participant

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creation is hardly communicable, like the shrieks of Antonin Artaud, which seemed to him an expression of his inner being but sounded to his audience like sheer madness.62 Art and entertainment forms that are geared towards the expectations of the audience are purely separant, – greeting cards, the Eurovision song contest, B-movies, all of which are comprised of equal measures of sex and violence, and are laced with cliché-ridden dialogue. There is no participant depth provided by the revelatory experiences of the artist. Only the complementarity between the separant and participant core components of the artist is conducive to the viability and durability of the work of art. “Kitsch” and “schmaltz” constitute a free flow of separant projections of sex, power, possession, and success without the “check” of the refinement of participant forms which gives it profundity and balance. Some avant garde theater makes it dramatis personae rape, sodomise, and cannibalise one another. This, like many of de Sade’s novels, is a libidinal ressentiment flow which may serve as a catharsis for the playwright, but lacks the structuring participant checks and balances which produce the dialectical tensions of authentic art. A big-breasted woman in a Fellini film, structured within the longing, passion and guilt of an adolescent boy, is an artistic portrayal. The same big-breasted woman groaning heavily in a pornographic movie is not. Many publishers give instructions to authors – the following are examples from a publisher for romantic novels, a popular form flooding the market: HEROINE: 18-30, spirited, intelligent, may have problems to overcome: selfishness, jealousy, imagined figure problems. Should have a glamorous industry or want one. Need not be a virgin. HERO: older than heroine, but not by more than 15 years. PLOT: a love story between two dynamic people. Obvious padding not permitted. LOVE SCENES: within the first 50 pages; we want to see foreplay, during-play and after-play. Euphemisms essential below the waist. Rape not recommended. Should it occur, it must move the story forward. POSSIBLE PROFFESSIONS: disc jockey, bartender, scientist, securities broker, tennis instructor.

The heroine, Marisa, of a romance entitled Wicked, Loving Lies complains that she has been raped twelve times and plaintively says,

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“Don’t I count as a person?” Well, no! She has not been imbued with her creator’s unique passions, trials and yearnings, projected by his participant core. Marisa is a flat character, as required by the publisher’s instructions. Brutal rapes and murders are depicted in Bergman’s film, The Virgin Spring, and Genet’s novel, Our Lady of the Flowers. However, in these examples, the separant flow of passion and violence are complemented by, and intertwined with, tortured emotions, projected participant guilt, and stylistic longing. They are Tantalic projections into mythogenes which generate soaring, memorable, authentic art. For creativity to be an aesthetic system-in-balance, the participant insight, intuition, and emotion must be structured within separant forms complementing each other in the Mythogenic Structure. The fantasies and phantoms of Bosch and the sordidness of Francis Bacon are structured into triptychs. The painful wail of the Greek bazuki is timed by the rhythmic beats of life and the self-effacing longing of grace is stylized into the baroque movements of a minuet. The harmonizing synchronization between melody and rhythm in music aptly illustrates the interplay between the participant and separant vectors in a work of art. The melody, sometimes wailing, often longing, but always yearning to transcend a given reality in the here-and-now, represents the Tantalic participant component, whereas the rhythm is the Sisyphean separant element of music. Rhythm anchors the music into spatio-temporality, whereas the melody tries to effect a Bergsonean durée, flowing through time and yearning into eternity. Indeed, the participant synchronic inner core of the self infuses into art a unique depth of timelessness. Both Tzara, a prophet of Dada, and Breton, one of the founders of Surrealism, said that the sophistication and uniqueness of a work of art comes from the inner self of the artist. Paul Valery, one of the first to expound conceptual art, proclaimed that only nothingness is perfect. This is the concept of non-being as the Tantalic component of creation. Of special importance is the statement made by Etienne Decroux, one of the founders of corporeal mime dancing, that non-movement lends delicacy and grace to the dance. He realized that the restful participant component of dancing provides inner grace to the movements of the human body. Hence, an authentic creation is a dialectic unique to each individual and culture. It is the flow of participant yearnings structured by the separant forms within the mythogene, and embedded in the work of creation within space and time, which makes the creation sui generis. Sartre sensed these dialectics intuitively when he described the motivating forces of Tintoretto’s art as “ridiculous combinations” of “the delirium of pride and the madness of humility, frustrated ambitions and unleashed

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confusion, harsh repression and persistent bad luck, the will to succeed and the dizzying urge to fail.”63 However, Sartre’s value judgment was all wrong. The dialectics of creativity between the separant and participant motivations which he has enumerated are not ridiculous combinations, but the fuel, the raw energy within the Mythogenic Structure which generates the authentic and enduring art and creation. The Sisyphean cycle of creativity is sensed by the author whenever he starts writing a new book. He feels that he is going to “make it,” and will open new vistas of knowledge and achieve a lasting sense of personal fulfillment. Once the book is completed, a tell-tale restlessness sets in as the realization dawns that no new epoch-making breakthrough has been achieved. Authentic creativity anchors on the process of creation, not on its outcome. Camus’ Grand Inquisitor, who continually polishes and rewrites one sentence, is engaged in authentic creativity. The associate professor writing a book in order to be promoted is not. Whoever seeks authenticity and fulfillment outside the process of creativity is bound to fail; those who focus on the results of their endeavors and not on their processes, are asking for the impossible when they search for creative fulfillment. Sizable royalties is rewarding as are literary prizes. However, nothing compares with the elation, the intensity, and the thrill of structuring ideas, emotions, and experiences into words and sentences. Many creators, often the most authentic and profound, have a feeling of fright and anxiety when they are confronted by their creative task. Jacques Brel used to throw up before every performance, and the best of lecturers feel stage fright in front of their audiences. This signifies the creator’s dilemma vis-à-vis his deference to his audience, and Sisyphus’s awe in front of his stone. The relationship between anxiety and creativity is not linear but curvilinear. Some anxiety signifies the authentic and intense involvement with the creative task, but severe fear may hamper creativity and extreme anxiety may stifle the creator. When fear and anxiety mount uncontrollably the hill seems steeper and steeper, and the stone becomes heavier and heavier, until Sisyphus lies prostrate and immobile beneath its weight. Likewise, sensitivity is related in a curvilinear manner to creativity. In order to be creative, one has to be open, receptive, and impressionable to one’s objective and human environment. Yet, this sensibility makes one vulnerable and touchy. Hence, too much sensitivity may injure one’s tender receptivity and stifle the creative potential, but low sensitivity or even the absence of it may effect a dullness and a feeling of being closed to one’s environment, which

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may not permit the elaborate, intricate, and often times delicate object relationships, crucial to authentic creativity. As creative involvement is initially a Sisyphean process, the separant Greek culture has provided some very apt conceptual frameworks for it. One of the basic Greek norms is that one should always remain within the bounds of one’s moira, one’s “lot in life.” Hence, extreme involvement with the object, as well as an unduly oversensitive exposure to it, is a selfdefeating dynamic as far as creativity is concerned. Therefore, the Sisyphean Greek culture has ordained its basic maxim of “nothing in excess” as a psychological and mytho-empirical directive regarding the creative object-relationship as well. It should be pointed out, however, that each individual has his own unique intensity of involvement and sensitivity related to his specific bio-psycho-social configuration, which is linked to his optimal creativity. Another curvilinear relationship exists between conflict, pain, suffering, and creativity. Some conflicts internally felt by the creator may be projected onto the creation, lending it a personalized dimension of depth. Too much conflict, however, may stifle the creator. In a similar vein, straining to overcome pain, interference, and obstacles, fuels the fire of creativity, but unbearable pain and insurmountable obstacles are liable to extinguish them. Indeed, the myth of Sisyphus, as interpreted by Camus and by the author, envisages the creativity of man within the context of a cyclical obstacle course. We should imagine Sisyphus happy in his work if he manages to be involved creatively with his stone-object while strenuously pushing it uphill. When the stone rushes downhill, we push it up again and try to harness this cycle in the service of our creative energies. These are the polar alternatives along a Sisyphean continuum of object relationships. We either transform our burden into something creative or slump beneath it without authenticity, our mishap exacerbated by the petrifying routines of daily life. Inner conflict and outer obstacles may serve either as fuel for authentic creativity, or as the extinguishing foam that stifles it. The mytho-empirical anchor of man’s deprivational interaction with the object, his strife and suffering, is the curse God inflicted on man following Original Sin. We connect the fall and expulsion from paradise to the ejection of the individual from the pantheism of early orality. Hence, the creative path back to the object is through the agony of thorns and thistles, and the sweat of the brow, as ordained by the God of Genesis. Indeed, many great creative colossi have seen their art as a sublimation of their suffering. Nietzsche regarded his creativity as:

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Chapter Four [T]hat power which voluntarily takes the pain of living upon itself because it ever newly feels within itself the creative strength to turn the pain into a means to an end in which it feels itself borne beyond pain…in that creative power for which even the hardest, toughest materials are not too hard or tough, because it is nevertheless superior to them, nevertheless capable of chiseling its god-figures out of them.64

Ezra Pound’s humiliation by the town bullies of Pisa triggered the soaring heights of his later Cantos, and the fires of unconsummated love fueled the art of Petrarch, Heine, and Kierkegaard. The torments of Van Gogh, Gauguin and Francis Bacon were transformed into epoch-making rebellious innovations. However, the curvilinear nature of the relationship between creativity and suffering may paralyze the creator if he must endure unbearable agony. On the other hand, success, and the cozy complacency that often accompanies it, may also stifle creativity. The stressful relationship between man and his object, which provides the “fuel” for creativity, makes authentic creation border on brinkmanship. This is the Nietzschean and Camusean mandate to create dangerously, with its mytho-empirical projection of Damocles dancing desperately under the sword. The keyword here is desperation. Sartre describes Tintoretto as frantically and unceasingly producing. His desperation is apparent in his difficulty deciding “whether he was trying to find or to flee himself through his work.”65 Rimbaud draws the ferocious vigor of his poetry from his desperate longing to partake of the desert winds, the damp hell of the South Sea jungles, and the searing magic of pagan Gods. Rimbaud courted danger in order to provide his poetry with the irreversible lucidity of desperation. Jacques Brel, who made desperation the muse and source of his invention, infused his lovers, his old, his misfits and his dying with the maddening pace of his rebellious truths. Brel seems to have heeded Nietzsche’s imperative as paraphrased by Camus, to create dangerously because “…there is no other peace for the artist than what he finds in the heat of combat… [he should] seek the respite where it is- in the very thick of the battle.”66 Brel sings that one does not forget anything and indeed one should not, because each creative act is unique. It stands by itself and for itself and not as a means, leverage or mediation for anything beyond it. The intensity of creative involvement makes for the artist’s image of egocentricity. The paradox is that the more intense one’s creative involvement with one’s surroundings, the more one appears to be detached from them, and immersed in oneself. Upon deeper scrutiny, this paradox resolves itself with the realization that the intensity of creative involvement immerses the artist in his creation, and excludes the rest of

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the world from his range of concentrated attention. The exclusive resoluteness of creativity effects an extasis, an “extrusion” of the artist from the routine of space-time, and a temporary ascent into different spheres of existence. For instance, Stefan Zweig described Auguste Rodin’s total immersion in molding the clay for his sculpture, so that he completely forgot the guest waiting for him outside his atelier.67 Artaud declared that he felt a sense of total existence only when engulfed by fleeting fragmentary moments of creativity, and Proust secluded himself in his womb-like study, isolating himself inside a cork lining to recreate the cherished landscapes of his childhood in total withdrawal from the outside world. This creative retreat into an unshared cocoon of private spatiotemporality has its grim aspects, causing Cezanne to absentmindedly abstain from attending his mother’s funeral, and Rilke to forget his daughter’s wedding. However, whatever the effect of creativity on the artist’s social interaction, its authentic intensity grants him a sense of fulfillment and self-realization. It trivializes daily trials, puts existential vicissitudes in perspective, and lends the artist ontological security, even in the shifting mires of the here-and-now. Creativity also necessitates a certain detachment. It is true that without subjective involvement there can be no creativity, but the relationship is curvilinear. An overly intense involvement may paralyze the creator; a measure of distance and dissociation is necessary for the artist to gain the right perspective. The artist can very easily be tagged by the normative branding agencies of society as alienated, estranged, and deviant. The label of deviance might be reinforced by the fact that the authentic creator is immersed in the creative process, and is relatively oblivious to money and fame. There might be no better an illustration of this premise than the advertisement for the van Gogh volume in Time Life Library of Arts. “It took the eyes of a madman to see the world in a new light and to paint it that way.” We suggest that most great innovations and creations have been made by those deemed outsiders, deviants, and madmen in their lifetimes. This is a variation on the “Kropotkin hypothesis,” that all great and epoch-making discoveries were made outside academic institutions and, we may add, by deviants and outsiders within academia. The persecution of Galileo, the harassment of Bach, and the early loneliness of Einstein are a few celebrated instances. Extreme forms of the creator-audience relationship present Scylla and Charybdis choices. The extremely isolated and non-communicative artist is embedded in the solipsism of being both creator and audience. Dostoevsky’s man in the underground illustrates this concept. On the other extreme, we have the poet laureate and court jester, who are not so far

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apart in their total dependence on some relevant others, and their need to cater to the tastes and whims of their audiences. These are the extreme poles of a continuum; most artists can be positioned between them. The greater the extent to which the artist is anchored in his participant, revelatory inner core, the less marketable his creation; though its participant creator tries to ensure the sincerity of his art, he cannot evaluate its public reception. He may decide that the creative process is more important to him than the peddling of his art and he may thus be “discovered” only after his death, or not at all. We can only guess how many Bachs has been totally forgotten because they did not have a Mendelssohn-Bartholdy to rediscover them. Often the revelatory participant artist immersed in visions of his inner self is not willing to compromise with his audience, and insists on being accepted on his own esoteric terms, not realizing that he is asking for the impossible. To feel appreciated or valued, the artist is usually dependent on feedback from a specific audience, or from people whose opinion he values most. This is greatly apparent with the performing artist, whose art consists of his ability to “come across” to his audience. A prominent Israeli actress said that the stage is her sacrificial altar, on which she prays to achieve revelatory elation. Yet even for her the audience is essential, because the actoraudience relationship is the creative unit of the dramatic performance. An actor often sacrifices his personal well being, his health and livelihood for the actor-audience complementarity and dialectical interactions, which are the essence of his art and its main reward. As we have tried to demonstrate, creativity aims at communication with objects and people; this is its authentic raison d’être. However, when the end product is complete, it may be promoted in order to achieve recognition, fame and money. These two processes have hardly anything in common. The quest for communication in creativity anchors on the process of creation and fuels the self-expression inherent in this process, whereas the sale of the end product is a pure marketing matter which relies on promotion, image-building, and public relations, not very different from the selling detergents and cereals. The quest for communication through creativity is an organic part of the process of creation, whereas the subsequent sale is not. Writing a book in the hope that someone may pick it up today, or a hundred years from now, and feel an affinity with the author’s ideas, is a dynamic of communication inherent in the process of authentic creativity. Per contra, the motivation to write for pecuniary gains or for recognition by the generalized other is not an integral part of authentic creativity, but extraneous to it.

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The initial sale of works of art is often inversely related to their authenticity and revelatory depth, which stems from the uniqueness of the creator’s inner self. This is based on promotion techniques, which cater to the lowest common denominator of public taste to ensure the widest possible exposure and largest sales. When an author tries to communicate the intricate feelings, conflicts, thoughts, and interpersonal relationships, as experienced by his unique psycho-cultural configuration, he is bound to experience difficulties in expressing himself through the rather inadequate means of language. Words are at best only approximate echoes of one’s thoughts and feelings; at worst, they distort the uniqueness of the author’s experience. In addition, an authentic creator who anchors the process rather than the end product of his art is not likely to make compromises with his audience and facilitate the easy understanding and absorption of his creation. Hence his audience is bound to be rather limited.68 On the other hand, an author writing for the generalized other, with a view to selling as many books as possible, will utilize the shallow clichés and streamlined stereotypes palatable to the modal tastes of the masses. In its extreme, this trend is often manifest in commercially successful books. The publisher avoids originality, publishing a formula that works. For example, westerns usually end with the cowboy riding into the sunset while romantic novels have the hero sweeping the heroine off her feet. The marketing of a creation, like the selling of any other product, is a function of power, money and skill. Publishers, for instance, look for bestsellers and only if they have enough of these do they allow themselves to publish the occasional quality “prestige piece,” which is “good PR,” even if it does not bring in enough money. But one mustn’t exaggerate! When Herman Melville insisted on writing more of his “think pieces,” his publishers retorted that they had enough of them and the public would prefer some racy adventure stories. Like Luther before the Inquisition, Melville declared that he could not do otherwise. He was then relegated to oblivion and was not rediscovered until the 1920s, a century after his birth. Mainly, however, a creation will be recognized, accepted, and rewarded with money and fame because of vested economic and political interests, fads, or snob appeal. This is irrespective of the timeless value of a creation or its authenticity, which might be similar to other works of art that have not been “discovered” and publicly recognized. Some authors, for instance, are elevated onto the bestseller lists by a new diet, a wave of feminism, or the marriage of the Prince of Wales. Others, like Arthur Koestler, Jacob Bronowsky, and Kenneth Clark, are master popularizers of intricate scientific doctrines, philosophical theories, and art appreciation for the masses. Some of the

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great artists who became financially successful in their lifetimes, like Picasso and Dali, were also great businessmen. Finally, chance, luck, and coincidence may play a major role in the rediscovery of creative giants like Bach and Melville. A large number of profound writings are probably still buried in obscurity because there has never been a convergence of factors to generate a renaissance of interest in them, the likes of which happened to the works of Melville and Herman Hesse. A surfeit of fame and money has often asphyxiated creativity, inducing the artist to rest on his laurels or slip into a contented slumber. The bourgeois, so much despised by the authentic artist, may thus have the last word. The case of Jacques Brel is especially painful, whereby his last record, which he considered his rebellious testament, was callously commercialized by the carnivorous, bourgeois peddlers he so masterfully ridiculed in his songs. Creativity is marked by fierce competitiveness, which tends to push it into an inauthentic quest for marketable products. The participant component of creativity tends to blunt this competitiveness, making for a more authentic anchor in the processes of creation. There is, however, enough venom and malice within ambition-crazed cliques to push many heedless creators off the achievement pyramid into the abyss of oblivion. In the lore of the combative artistic clique this is expressed with the observation that the moment one starts climbing the ladder of public recognition and success, there are those ready to engineer one’s downfall. Together with what is known in Hollywood as the “curse of the Oscar,” and in scientific circles as the “noose of the Nobel Prize,” it constitutes the self-defeating component of public recognition. A best-selling author, an Oscar winner, or a Nobel laureate may be swept out of the optimal state of mind for authentic creativity and hurled into the momentarily loving but carnivorous bosom of the admiring public, severing him from his sources of inspiration. A temporary creative recession, experienced by the likes of Rod Steiger and Albert Camus, is exactly what John Le Carré dreads with every new bestseller, and is the reason for his repeated refusals to accept lucrative invitations to Hollywood. Mytho-empirically we denote such fear of – or even flight from – public acclaim as the Jonah Syndrome. Apart from the realization that material success is likely to deflate the dialectical energy underlying creation, the Jonah Syndrome also arises from the creator’s agoraphobic dread of an excess of stimuli to which he is exposed following public acclaim. It is quite understandable, according to our model, that a public which cannot distinguish between the artist and his art, physically and mentally

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devours muddle-headed performers like Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley. The art establishment may also muffle the rebelliousness of creative artists by burying them in the coziness of its soft and overflowing contours, which is what happened to Jean Genet. After Sartre wrote a book that made Genet the first existentialist saint, Genet, it is reported, could not write for five years. All he did was drive around in a Rolls Royce, changing his young companions every few days. De Sade was completely lionized by the academic establishment, which showered him with torrents of pompous encomia – no doubt making the Divine Marquis turn in his grave. More disturbingly, yet proving the universality of our models, is the fact that Camus himself, expounder of the myth of Sisyphus, succumbed to the vicissitudes of success. Public acclaim deprived him of the dialectical strain that is vital to creativity. However, most creators search for recognition and the wealth that goes with fame to reinforce their sense of self-esteem. If public acceptance fails to materialize, they may bask in the ressentiment halo of “the genius unrecognized by the Philistines.” This is sure to position our acclaimthirsty artist under the dominion of the generalized other, whose recognition he is trying to gain. In turn, it further decreases the chances of authentic creation. The course, which may finally prove to be both more authentic and more politic, is to immerse oneself in the process of creativity, and thereby to gain one’s sense of inner dialectical fulfillment. If public acclaim does come, one accepts it as a fringe benefit of the authentic self-realization inherent in the process of creativity. The powerful and talentless within competitive groups begrudge the talents of others in the group, especially if they are powerless. Therefore they find scapegoats and objects to stigmatize.69 The powerless talented are therefore predisposed to be tagged as deviants among the powerful pacesetters of professional, academic, and artistic groups. Moreover, in many forms of art and creativity, the cliques are also the arbiteri elegantiari. They use their power to brand the work of the authentic creator who rejects their authority, or does not conform to the rules of the clique, as mediocre or worthless. The innovative outsider is usually illequipped to fight this judgment, because he is basically powerless, roaming somewhere on the fringes of institutionalized art, or outside it altogether. Therefore, the test of the artistic worth of an artist and his art is outside time and place. Only in retrospect can we appreciate the excellence of a Mozart, a van Gogh, or a Melville. The sad fact is that most innovative creators are recognized only after their deaths. During their lifetimes, cliquish interests and power structures (averse to those who rock the boat) evaluate them. Only when the creator’s critics and rivals, as well

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as the artist, are dead, can his creation be given its rightful due in a disinterested context. As we stated earlier, creators and their creations must effect an extasis, an emergence outside of history into synchronicity, in order to be evaluated in their proper perspective. Those who enjoy wealth and acclaim because of their position of power will not even be remembered in footnotes, whereas the creative outsiders will be recognized for their contributions without the marring, blocking and twisting affects of vested interests and power politics. The vested interest and clique-based evaluation of the creator not only dates him, but also binds him in a derogatory manner to a given place. This we denote as the Muhammad Syndrome, exemplified by the saying, “There is no prophet in his own country.” The people of Mecca (Muhammad’s hometown), did not accept him as their prophet, so he moved to Medina where he was acclaimed as the emissary of God. Muhammad’s trip from Mecca to Medina, the Hejira, was considered so crucial that it came to serve as the baseline for the Moslem calendar. Indeed, we hear the gentry of Mecca muttering, “This runny-nosed epileptic is a prophet? Never!” The British say that “familiarity breeds contempt,” while Proust remarked that we cannot impute genius to the tablemate who picks his teeth after dinner. The deeper basis for the Muhammed Syndrome is that power elites are wary of the creative innovator, and try to suppress him. The authentic creator is more likely to fulfill himself creatively without the stifling normative prejudices of the indigenous others when he leaves, in a rebellious mood, for another place. Hence, authentic creativity is not bound to a particular time or place; it is boundless. Clique-anchored, interest-based creation, however, is both dated and unable to “travel.” Artistic cliques are composed of a few artists and many camp followers, lackeys, groupies, critics, managers, and assorted spongers, all centered around a hard-core leadership, which draws its power not from creative excellence, but from the control of budgets, journals, theaters, radio, and television stations. Such types are separantly dependent on the clique for favors, employment, and a sense of relative achievement, which comes from stigmatizing their “colleagues.” The cliques, through their publicrelations organs, create celebrities and destroy them. When someone has been declared brilliant by the public communications channels, the declaration becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if everybody, including the artist who received the praise, knows that the critic responsible for it is shallow, the laudatory image receives the sanction of “public opinion,” and vox populi becomes vox dei. There are, however, many instances in which authentic creators require the “beneficial

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services” of cliques, institutions, and establishments in order to expose their works to groups and individuals with whom they wish to communicate. These are professional organizations, congresses, publishing houses, theaters, and galleries. Camp followers, lackeys, and groupies, as well as sincere friends and constructive critics, give the artist the feedback he so ardently needs as a reinforcement of his own sense of worth, and as an assessment of the communicative value of his creation. The creator may thereby become easy prey to flatterers who exploit him, materially and emotionally. Because of his separant need for reinforcement, he is in a poor position to distinguish between lackey and friend, between flatterer and sincere critic. The institutionalized outlets for his creations shower him with honors that stifle his creativity in a thick mesh of complacency, and quench his authentic rebellion with pomposity and self-satisfaction. Creative people are usually too absorbed in their work to be involved in administration and institutional power politics. Deans, directors of granting agencies, museum curators, and administrative directors of orchestras are usually people who have stopped being creative, or have never been so. Yet they have power over creative people because they control the budgets and other essentials for the creator’s work. Creative people soon find themselves at the mercy of such administrators, who are liable to abuse their power. The creator may rebel, but soon finds that he is powerless. When he persists in demanding what he considers his legitimate due, he is likely to be branded a troublemaker and denied tenure. His non-involvement in power politics (since his creative effort absorbs most of his time and energy) also predisposes him to loneliness, whereas the power-anchored controllers operate in mutually supportive cliques. The pseudo-bohemians, synthetic bums, and salon rebels seek and sometimes have the best of both worlds; they are adept at adjusting to the fads, fashions, and power shifts within the cliques, while outwardly appearing to be rebels, creators, and bohemians. They pose as artists, and they wear the latest in beat, camp, or punk fashion. They have the mannerisms, expressions, and bearings of poets, actors and novelists. In addition to wearing the uniform of artists, they also sit in coffee-shops or bars, which are reputed to be the “watering holes” of celebrities. What the pseudo-bohemians do not possess is the raison d’être of the artist, the process of authentic creativity itself, which no material remuneration or social acclaim can rival in its sense of fulfillment. T. S. Eliot was usually clad in a conservative suit and tie. Modigliani frequented coffee shops only to sell his paintings for a few franks in order to buy cheap wine, which eventually ruined his liver. Bach had the appearance and household

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of a harried shopkeeper. Yet, all three felt what the synthetic bums could never feel: the majestic throbbing of their inner eagle lifting them up from their place and time, onto the boundless eternity of authentic creativity. Since authentic creativity is a continuous process, one must continually find new ways of expression and novel techniques of artistic communication. Resting on one’s laurels is tantamount to stagnation. In extremo, however, this constant pursuit of innovation may turn into a cult of newness that accepts anything, pseudo-art included, provided that it is novel. “We have learned so well how to absorb novelty,” says Richard Hofstadter, “that receptivity itself has turned into a kind of tradition - the tradition of the new yesterday’s avant-garde experiment is today’s chic and tomorrow’s cliché.”70 Many phony artifacts or performances, intended to shock, overwhelm, or simply fool audiences, may thus pose as art. This process may be described mytho-empirically as the transformation of the creative Sisyphus into the tortured Prometheus. Mythological transformations are very common, and elsewhere we have extensively studied the transformation of Koré, Demeter’s “good” daughter, into “horrible” Persephone.71 In the present context, the creative Sisyphus commits hubris and arouses the jealousy of the Olympian Gods, the mythical projections of separant men. The Gods then punish Prometheus in the same way that jealous and competitive power elites in groups stigmatize and ostracize unruly and rebellious creative innovators. The rock-burden of Sisyphus is thus symbolically transformed into the rock to which Prometheus is chained. It is also symbolic that the regeneration of Prometheus’s liver and his subsequent torture by the vulture is cyclic, paralleling the cyclic trials of Sisyphus with his stone. It bears mention here that the makers of Persian carpets deliberately introduce a flaw into each article, in order not to commit the hubris of perfection and thereby incur the wrath of the jealous Gods. The plight of creative Prometheans is liable to seem pathetic when they fail to understand the dynamics of the relationship between the innovators and the power structures of society. They may complain that their innovation benefits the group and humanity at large, so why are they being punished? Haven’t the Promethean innovators given light to humanity? Of course they have! But in the process they have “rocked the boat,” or they have ruffled certain vested interests (the gas companies, for instance, were bound to be handicapped by Thomas Edison’s electric light bulb). Above all, however, creative innovators have aroused the jealousy of the Olympians, which are mythical separant projections of the competitive power elites in society. They are much more concerned with maintaining their power and vested interests than with artistic excellence, scientific

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progress, or the welfare of humanity. With typical naiveté, the Promethean creative outsiders demand to be accepted by the public, which is led and controlled by the power elites against whom they rebel and by the vested interests which they challenge. The Promethean’s misfortune is thus exacerbated because he is asking for the impossible. He does not realize that by being excellent he makes the power elites appear more mediocre and sterile than they actually are. His difference and otherness fills the vulgus with apprehension and anxiety. Finally, his creativity makes him seem powerful, yet socially and materially he is powerless. Hence, he is a powerless power symbol and, as we have shown in The Mark of Cain,72 this combination makes for a perfect scapegoat. On the macro level of metaphysical programming, the power elites, artistic cliques, and academic institutions might apologize (best described as smacking of science fiction) for the fact that the stigmatization of creative innovators serves as a guard against too much innovation, for which society is unprepared. The Inquisition, which in Galileo’s time stood for stability, good order, propriety, and probity, and was the staunch defender of the universal Church, and had to torture Galileo to make him recant his atrocious contentions, which might lead to cosmic, social, and religious chaos. Yet Galileo could not help it. Being a rebellious creative innovator, he could not but declare against all convention, “Epur si muove.” Antonin Artaud was a poet, painter, filmmaker, playwright, theatre director and theoretician, and was one of the founders of the surrealist movement. His essays The Theatre of Cruelty and The Theatre and its Double had a strong impact on French theatre. He was born in 1896 and died in 1948. He was in and out of mental institutions for the last ten years of his life. A 1937 portrait of him shows a young, glowing face, with the proud beauty of a God. A 1947 photograph is that of an old man, with a wrinkled, twisted face, his mouth gaping and eyes opaque, a result of electric shocks and psychiatric drugs, whose side effects were worse than the symptoms of his disease. His identification with Vincent van Gogh was one of brotherhood in art and misery. His essay on van Gogh was one of his most sensitive and profound works, and like him, he committed suicide. Basically, Artaud’s thesis is that society defends itself from great innovators by labeling them mad. In The Theatre and its Double, he expressed his dualistic, rather Gnostic, belief that the theatre reflects life, yet must liberate itself by expressing the primary instincts of sex and cruelty, engage in fetish rituals, replete with tribal masks and primitive background music. As such, it was to have a layer of therapeutic psychodrama. Artaud lavishly used onomatopoeia and gibberish, but

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required the actors to concentrate on what they were saying and to pronounce their replicas with maximum force. His ideas influenced such giants as Roger Blin, Jean-Louis Barraux, Julian Beck and Samuel Beckett, and through them European and world drama. Like his idol Vincent van Gogh, he opted for maximum authenticity, and for rejection of the generalized and certain petrifying others. Both endured the ostracism and misunderstanding suffered by the creative innovator, believing that what was important lay in the process of art, and not in its material and social rewards. However, since we consider art a communicative process, if only with a single kindred soul, at the end of his life Artaud had ceased to be an artist. Vincent van Gogh in all probability had not sold, as we have seen, a single painting during his lifetime. Yet he never ceased to seek dialogue through his art with someone who would understand it. Per contra, Artaud invited all the who’s who of Paris culture to a theatre hall and howled at them with blood curdling shrieks. With this non-communicative event, he labeled himself a mad, pitiful has-been. Artaud revealed himself to be an existentialist phenomenologist by trying to cope with the essence of the self, and to reach the core of the “pure self” by phenomenological reduction. Like his alter ego van Gogh, he saw himself as the suffering Christ, despised by the demiurgical “others”, the Wiedergeists, the double-dealing hypocrites. Artaud wrote: But there is someone that has always loved me for my goodness within me, not only in my body but also in my soul. This is somebody called Jesus Christ, because the priests have always the greatest tenderness for my devotion and my piety. I did not realize this in the beginning but it is some years now that I know that all the mass prayers on earth have been based on my piety.73

When van Gogh depicted himself in one of his paintings as St. Lazarus (and the Savior), nobody saw it. But when Artaud claimed that masses were being held in churches all over the world for his soul, he was quite well (or rather notoriously) known, in Paris, and the statement guaranteed him the tag of insanity. Deploring the existential loneliness of man, Artaud wrote: My solitude is without a name and without any identity. It exasperates by the horror which has haunted me that reality have been myself. I know now that I have always been a stranger to this earth.74

Man is a Tantalic being who cannot be saved from his fate: he is destined never to achieve what he longs for. Moreover, while the fox has his lair and the bird its nest, man has no place to escape from his misery.

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Yet again, like van Gogh, Artaud never ceased to seek, indeed crave dialogue. He was always attuned to the other, any other, who might open a window to his soul. He never aimed at a superficial rapport with the exterior of the other; only a dialogue with his inner self would satisfy him. Such Buberian I-Thou dialogues were rare indeed. Most of the time he was frustrated and retreated into his lonely corner, or became immersed in a catatonic stupor. Artaud understood that the theatre is the means for structuring mythogenes which lend meaning to the lives of both performer and spectator, just as the paintings of van Gogh mythogenically link the artist and his audience over time and space, revealing to both important insights. Artaud was a participant retreatist, who courted annihilation within history. He held a lifelong interest in Unio Mystica. He studied the doctrines of Ruysbroeck, San Juan de la Cruz and Jacob Boehme. While van Gogh committed suicide when he could no longer contain the everwidening horizons of his being, for Artaud suicide was an alternative to seeking union with the all-embracing unity in entirely unknown circumstances, the ultimate adventure in face of the unfathomable. He believed, as he wrote to his friend Riviere, that in order to grasp the meaning of being, one must annihilate one’s cognition, perceptions and nervous energy.75 Artaud was certainly eccentric, deviant, bizarre, and what is commonly known as “mad”; yet, we wish to ascertain what effect all this had on him, and to what insights and creative domains it brought him. Admittedly, being mad revealed to him the meaning of the world. Hence, insanity for him delineated the limits of understanding; yet, for the stigmatizing others, such reaching out towards the normative boundaries of comprehension constituted madness, since the agencies of social control take deviant and antisocial behavior as the main indication of insanity. Artaud’s writings are as explosive as van Gogh’s paintings. Yet, the work of van Gogh was structured and communicative, whereas Artaud opted for intellectual anarchy, which in the last analysis cannot be communicative, and therefore does not amount to art. Artaud’s experience of insanity was very similar to van Gogh’s, and both regarded psychiatry and mental asylums as tools of social control, not of therapy. In his essay Le Suicidé de la Societé76 he projected his own experiences and longings – as well as his structured mythogenes – onto van Gogh and his art, so that the mythogenes were Artaud’s, while at the same time relating to van Gogh and to their common Weltauschauung. Like Vincent, he saw himself as a martyr for his art; he abhorred its lack of appreciation by the coarse vulgus and its artistic institutions. He called van Gogh the organist of an enclosed storm.77 This poetic metaphor is apt and forceful, but describes Artaud himself and his

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non-communication more than it does the expressive torrent of Vincent’s work. He was also convinced that his suffering was sublimated into art as a theurgic means to transcendence. In his surrealistic, poetic style, he denoted van Gogh’s paintings as “old sins, which have not yet been absolved.”78 Their absolution would seemingly be effected by their extasis from history into the synchronic authentic domain in transcendence. Artaud projected onto van Gogh his own experiences of stigma, ostracism and the stifling of his excellence during the nine years of his incarnation in mental institutions. This brings to mind the ostracizers in the Agora of Athens. They voted to expel Aristides from the polis, being fed up with hearing how righteous and talented he was all the time. Hence both van Gogh and Artaud “preferred” to become mad rather than forfeit their superior conception of human dignity. They did not want to conform to the slavish rules of the asylum, so they could be declared “cured” and be released. They preferred to stay inside the institutions rather than feign acceptance of their draconian, petrifying, humiliating regimes. The danger posed by “madmen” like van Gogh and Artuad to the mediocrities of the vulgus and “total institutions” was their greater lucidity, their ability to see farther, to feel deeper than the average man. Artaud wrote that van Gogh’s creations were like artistic atomic bombs that could not be contained by the power elites. Thus their way of defending their power was to declare Vincent mad.79 This is in line with the anti-psychiatric claim that the stigma of madness is a means of social control. Like van Gogh, Artaud’s love affairs were total, absolute and hence impossible. He also regarded art as a goal in itself, not as a means to material gain. Art is communication through an epistemic wall, which only the creative energy of a Vincent can effect.80 Another painter with whom Artaud identified was the Florentine Paolo Uccello (1397-1475), a marginal figure in Renaissance art. He was actually more Gothic than Renaissance, and his personality was split between intellectualism and artistic creativity.81 He was a genius alienated from the main current of the art of his time, which was dominated by Brunelleschi, Masaccio and Donatello. So much so, that Alberti did not include him in his directory of artists, De Pictura. Precisely this alienation attracted Artuad, who considered Uccello one of his alter egos, and called himself Paul des Oiseaux (birds) – uccello in Italian is a bird. Artaud had birds in his soul that longed to be liberated. Like Uccello, he had a psychosomatic, rather Gnostic, dualism in his personality, the “black hole” characteristic of our other subjects. He actually recognized in himself two entities: one dominated by the Gnostic Demiourgos, and therefore

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suspended in an unbearable temporality, and the other in the mystical realm of the spirit, envisaged by such Christian mystics as Jacob Boehme, Ruysbroeck and San Juan de la Cruz. Artaud saw himself vacillating between these dualities, always at the intersection of phenomena, not within them. Hence, he is mostly marginal to both dualities, and alienated from human groups and institutions, like his two role models. Yet his suffering caused by the ostracism of the generalized others and by the clashes with stigmatizing and depriving groups, was sublimated into a profound creativity. The relationship between pain and creativity is, as we have pointed out, not linear but curvilinear. Some suffering may be enriching, but too much may break the artist, as it did both van Gogh and Artaud. Not only does the bourgeoisie reject “mad” outsiders; society itself, aided by its controlling agents, fights the “insane” innovators, who expand man’s limits of awareness and widen their own and others’ normative being and conception of aesthetics. The bourgeoisie begrudges creative individuals for being creative, which most of its members are not. Hence, it ever pushes them into line and if they do not comply, they pay dearly, with their well-being, freedom and sometimes with their very lives. Such agencies of social control are the crows in van Gogh’s last painting, pumping dark lead into the clouds and blood into the earth. Artaud’s main concern was his crusade against the psychiatric establishment and its institutions. He realized that madness is culture-bound. He demanded to know what the justification was for declaring Vincent insane and committing him to a mental institution.82 A society engaged in the kind of atrocities described in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four should be regarded as an instrument of organized crime.83 Hence, Artaud “preferred” to remain “sick” and not forfeit his superior lucidity; yet the psychiatric institution and its repressive “treatment” exerted its toll. Artaud entered the mental hospital looking like a radiant young man; after nine years looked like a wrinkled old man with hollow cheeks, a toothless mouth and blank, opaque eyes. He experienced the ravages of the mental asylum on his own flesh, while Foucault, Laing and Szasz merely wrote about them. Psychiatrists are the Orwellian “thought police” curbing rebellious creativity.84 In order to hide their impotence, psychiatrists invent ridiculous terminology, which explains nothing and only serves to further stigmatize, segregate and alienate their patients.85 Thus, hospitals for the insane perpetuate their inmates’ afflictions, with the side effects of the treatments being much worse than the illness. Psychiatrists undermine their patients’ ingenuity; their demand that their charges renounce their individuality amounts to their insistence

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that the creative inmates forgo the basis of their creative innovation and hence is the most frequent cause of their suicidal despair.86 Artaud realized what more and more researchers have since confirmed: that mental illness is a conceptual sickness, generated by the “poisoned tongues” of psychiatrists.87 If one is desperately honest in one’s quest to examine one’s ontological boundaries, madness can be instrumental to that end. Insanity can widen and deepen our consciousness, yet many times the mad pay the price of their inner enlightenment with religious and quasi-religious condemnations. The church, the rabbinate and the ulema do not intend to relinquish their monopoly on revelation. Also, psychiatrists wish to show their adeptness at “curing” the insane, even if their brains are “burnt” in the process. The only way to fight insanity is to remain authentic and refuse to relinquish one’s insights. Artaud goes a step further than the Cartesian “I think, therefore I am” by postulating: “I am inside my body.”88 He thus expresses one of the most mind-boggling paradoxes of human existence: Why has my body been chosen to be the channel of cosmic awareness? And why does every human being feel the same way? How can this paradox be solved? Artaud was most susceptible to solipsism, since his eccentricity and deviance set him apart, and the psychiatric drugs and electric shocks reduced his already meager ability and desire to communicate. The solipsism of Artaud was reinforced by his body-centered Weltanschauung, his belief that the human body, or rather his body, was the only ontological reality.89 His inability and lack of desire to solve, at least for himself, the paradox of solipsism led him to anoint himself Bishop of Rodez; later he held the megalomaniacal view that he was the centre of the universe and that all Creation and its creatures were just his marionettes. His most ambitious goal was to reunite man and woman by somatic alchemy into a self-sufficient hermaphrodite.90 Thence, the solipsist Artaud would not need to pursue the pain-yielding love of another person or the conflict-ridden sex between male and female; he would be a selfsatisfying Ouroboros. As for transcendence, Artaud professed an improvement on the dialectical concept of the Christian trinity and the coincidentia oppositorum of alchemy. His unity was completed by the annihilation of multiplicity and the big-crunch like compression of all Creation into the potential of timeless, spaceless singularity.91 Artaud was certainly an existentialist in his conception of life, of being thrown unto death with anxiety. This anxiety was both somatic and spiritual.

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He did, however, carry out a phenomenological reduction of both life and death, and psychoanalyzed himself out of his fear of them. He followed his alter ego, Paulo Uccello, Paul of the Birds, in what he imagined the master had done: He traced all the paths of his thoughts within his body. Thence, he lived towards his death without pain, with a slow disintegration parallel to the entropy of his body.92 The manner he chose of rebelling against death was creativity. Like van Gogh’s painting, Artaud’s writing was an affront to death. Art and life were synonymous. Authentic art was not for entertainment, but for giving meaning to the life of the artist, and through him, to others who would open up to his creativity. Above all, art is not an ego-trip for applause and recognition, but a means for dialogue, for fusion with other human beings, for feeling their body and soul, for permitting them to breathe and tremble in unison with the artist.93 One also lifts oneself by authentic art into synchronicity, to partake of the authentic domain, where all the authentic art is stored forever, for exposure to kindred souls attuned to the artist. Madness, for Artaud, was a means to widen and deepen the limits of consciousness, until it soared to the authentic domain in transcendence.94 “There is no other issue for pure thought than death,”95 said Artaud, thus revealing his existentialist outlook: He was a companion of Heidegger, who saw being as a Geworfenheit zum Tod mit Angst und Sorge; and of Camus, who regarded the dilemma of whether or not to commit suicide as the most important issue in philosophy. He was not afraid of death, since love and its sublimation into creativity confront and thwart the apprehension of death.96 Artaud’s most interesting innovation is mytho-empirical and ideational; it is related to Uccello, whose fresco of Noah’s Ark depicts a refuge for the mad, the deviant, the pariah, a stultifera navis in the synchronic authentic domain outside history. This Noah’s Ark contains the authentic reservoir of mythogenes of creativity stored in synchronicity, waiting for the “right conditions and opportunities” to return to history and fructify its wastelands. Mytho-empirically, this Noah’s Ark is a structured limbo between the hell of history and a timeless paradise. The raven belongs to the powers of demiurgic evil. When released, it did not come back. The dove came back with an olive branch, a creative, mythogenic symbol of an I-Thou dialogue within history. A Midrash points out that Noah, before coming out of the ark, forced the hand of God, squeezing out of Him a promise that he would not be molested when emerging from the ark to resettle within history. Hence, the creative innovators that are shunned and persecuted in their lifetime, can bequeath their creations to

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history only when the artistic power cliques and the establishment do not interfere. The process of raising authentic creativity into the authentic domain within the mytho-empirical Noah’s Ark commences with the mythogenes of longing and experience, which “lift” the work of art into timeless synchronicity. This is the artistic mythologization of reality, lending metaphysical significance to history. This is very much like the Hassidic “worship in the concrete”, which sanctifies profane reality. Artaud understood that life gains meaning only through coincidentia oppositorum by means of art. The philosopher’s stone of alchemy is the artistic achievement which transforms the commonplace into an artistic triumph. Indeed, Artaud himself longed to partake of the transcendental Noah’s Ark by means of a denudation epidermique and emergence from his ego boundary, which is known clinically as one of the manifestations of autistic schizophrenia. The ontology of Noah’s Ark does not need verbal communication. It is the mytho-empirical projection of pantheistic early orality, or rather the metaphysical womb of the structured authentic domain. It stores the seeds of art and culture for re-dissemination in the atrophied, degenerate or corrupt cultures, wiped out as dysfunctional by the pitiless decree of evolution. Artaud existed in the spiritual ark, away from and beyond his historical body. He escaped the drudgery of daily life and exchanged it for the moratorium of madness, i.e., the total cessation of normal progression in one’s life. His Noah’s Ark was a place of deliverance from infernal history. Artaud remained in Noah’s Ark until his suicide. Noah’s Ark was believed by some church fathers, notably Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine, to be a permanent haven, designated by Divine wisdom to save humanity from periodic disaster, which could not have been prevented by the good God. This rather Manichean and Gnostic approach may have influenced Uccello, who depicts Noah’s Ark as filled – contrary to Scripture – mostly with sick, mutilated and dejected humans, led by an authoritarian, majestic figure standing as if at the helm of a ship, who was, in all probability, the image of Augustine. Noah’s Ark, as a cosmic place of refuge, encapsulated outside of time, was adopted and elaborated upon by Artaud, replete with a psychotic identification with Uccello. Uccello, the bird, was transformed into synchronicity, outside reality. He became a Noah saved from temporality.97 Artaud was not alone in Noah’s Ark, but flanked by the luminaries of the Italian Baroque: Donatello and Brunelleschi.98 These creative innovators, together with countless others (since the capacity of a timeless and spaceless capsule is infinite), cruise eternally outside history, seeking

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the proper recipients for the endless varieties of creative mythogenes stored in the authentic domain of Noah’s Ark. The landing of the mythogenic dove in a historical time and space depends on background factors hospitable to the seedling mythogenes, enabling them to take root in their new host. Of special importance was Uccello’s portrayal of Noah’s Ark as a haven for deviants, contrary to the Darwinian conception of the evolutionary selection of the fittest. This is in line with the hypothesis hinted at by Artaud, and fully developed in the present volume, as to the link between deviance and creative innovation. If indeed the outcasts, the pariahs, have a greater chance of seeing things differently, both materially and aesthetically, and hence to innovate, the admittance of the socially divergent into Noah’s Ark is evolutionarily functional from the standpoint of creativity. Hence, the historical stultifera navis, the total institutional solution for the incarceration and, indeed, elimination of deviants, madmen and sinners of medieval communities, was mytho-empirically transformed into Noah’s Ark, the a-historical refuge of the Mythogenic Structures of the creative innovators. Madness for Artaud was a means of extricating himself from history and into synchronicity, the atemporal refuge of Noah’s Ark. There, with the mythogenic innovations of nonconformist, stigmatized and inspired madmen, he would be stored in cultural limbo, outside history, until the olive branch in the beak of the dove signified that it was time for his innovations to land back in history, where they would be welcome, and not ignored or rejected as before. Noah’s Ark is the mytho-empirical place of storage of the great innovations in art and science, which were liable to “rock the boat”, and to upset the cultural system in their time. The evolutionary leash guards, therefore, the social structures and social characters from reaching innovations which would rock and shake a structure. If the creation is authentic and it is relegated to the Noah’s Ark to bide its time until society is ready for it, it is still eternal. It still impacts the cosmos in a unique and irreplaceable manner.

Notes 1

Tishby, I., The Doctrine of Evil and the Kellipot in Lurianic Kabbala (Jerusalem: Schoken, 1942), 147. 2 Shestov, L., In Job’s Balances (London: Dent and Sons, 1932), 239. 3 Ibid., 218. 4 Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem: Schoken Publishing House, 1941).

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5 Foerster, W., “The Gospel of Philip” in Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). 6 Dov Ber of Meseritz, Devrarav LeYa’akov (Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1962), 16. 7 Vital, H., Sefer Mevo Shearim pt 2, chap A cited in Tishby, I., Doctrine of Evil, 36. 8 Ibn Tabul, Drosh Heftzi-ba cited in ibid., 24. 9 Heidegger, M., “Remembrance of the Poet,” in Existence and Being. 3rd ed. (London: Vision, 1968), 251. 10 Heidegger, Existence and Being. 263. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 264. 13 Heidegger, M., “What is Metaphysics?” in Existence and Being, 218. 14 Heidegger, Existence and Being, 341. 15 Ibid., 265. 16 Dostyoevsky, F., The Brothers Karazamov (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958). 17 Beckett, S., Waiting for Godot (London: Faber and Faber: 1971), 28. 18 Beckett, S., “L’expulse,” Nouvelles et Textes pour Rien (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1958), 18. 19 Beckett. S., Watt (London: John Calder, 1953), 74. 20 Beckett, S., Murphy (New York: Grove Press, 1957), 178. 21 Beckett, S., Lessness (Calder and Bayars, 1969). 22 Beckett, S., “La Fin,” Nouvelles, 88-89. 23 Beckett, S., “Le Calmant,” ibid., 49. 24 Beckett, S., How it Is (New York: Grove Press, 1964). 25 Ibid. 26 Beckett, S., Poems in English (New York: Grove Press, 1961). 27 Beckett, Lessness. 28 Megged, M., Exile and Silence in the Work of Beckett, unpublished Ph.D thesis (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1973). 29 Shoham, S. G., The Violence of Silence: The Impossibility of Dialogue (Middlesex: Transaction Books, Science Reviews, Ltd., 1983). 30 Beckett, S., Happy Days (New York: Grove Press, 1961). 31 Beckett, S., Endgame: A play in One Act, followed by Act Without Words, a Mime for one Player (New York: Grove Press, 1958). 32 Beckett, S., "Not I", Ends and Odds: Eight New Dramatic Pieces (New York: Grove Press, 1976). 33 Beckett, Murphy. 34 Ibid., 252-253. 35 Kierkegaard, S., Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. David Swenson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941), 142. 36 Kierkegaard, S., The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. and trans. Alexander Dru (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), 178. 37 Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 142. 38 Golding, W., The Spires (London: Faber, 1964).

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39 Tolstoy, L., What is Art? trans. Almyer Maude (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960). 40 Artaud, K. B., A Man of Vision (New York: David Lewis, 1969). 41 Tolstoy, What is Art? 42 Shoham, S. G., The Sources of Violence (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publications, 1995). 43 Buber, M., Daniel (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1930), in Hebrew 44 Van Gogh, V., The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1959). 45 The Good Samaritan, Saint Remy, May 1890, Otterlo Rijksmuseum, KröllerMüller. 46 Letter 195 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 47 Buber, Daniel. 48 Shoham, S, G., Sex as Bait (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983), 180 et seq. 49 Van Gogh, Complete Letters. 50 Letter 529 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 51 Letter 154 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 52 Letter 379 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 53 Letter 227 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 54 Letter 332 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 55 Letter 544 from Vincent to Theo, Complete Letters. 56 Van Gogh, Complete Letters. 57 Walther, L. F. and Metzger, R., Vincent Van Gogh (Köln: Taschen, 1997), 442460. 58 Baumgarten, A. G., Reflections on Poetry (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1954). 59 Camus, A., Preface to The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Knopf, 1967). 60 Camus, A., The Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Knopf, 1964). 61 Sartre, J-P. The Prisoner of Venice (New York: The Noonday Press, 1957). 62 Artaud, A., The Theatre and its Double (London: Calder and Boyars, 1968). 63 Sartre, Prisoner of Venice. 64 Binion, R., Frau Lou: Nietzsche’s Wayward Disciple (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 83. 65 Sartre, Prisoner of Venice, 19. 66 Camus cited in Myth of Sisyphus. 67 Zweig, S., Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europaers (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1962). 68 Ibid. 69 Shoham, S. G. and Rahav, G., The Mark of Cain (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1982). 70 Camus, Preface to The Myth of Sisyphus. 71 Camus, A., The Rebel, trans. Anthony Bower (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962), 241.

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Shoham Mark of Cain . Artaud, A., Revue Oblique Consacree a Antonin Artaud, ed. R. Borderie and I. Pauvert (Paris: Editions Har Po, 1986). 74 Ibid., 213. 75 Ibid., 38. 76 Artaud, A., Van Gogh: Le Suicidé de la Société (Paris: K éditeur, 1947). 77 Artaud, Revue Oblique. 78 Artaud, Van Gogh, 50-51. 79 Ibid., 14. 80 Ibid., 40. 81 Borsi, F. and Borsi, S., Paolo Uccello, trans. E. Powell (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1994). 82 Artaud., A., OEuvres Complètes (Paris: Gallimard, [1976], 1982). 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., 32. 85 Ibid., 15. 86 Ibid., 37. 87 Artaud, Revue Oblique. 88 Ibid., 7. 30. 89 Ibid., 7. 90 Artaud, OEuvres Complètes. 91 Ibid., 69-105. 92 Artaud, Revue Oblique, 31. 93 Ibid., 190. 94 Ibid, 186. 95 Ibid., 38. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid., 39. 98 Ibid., 26. 73

GLOSSARY

AIN: A singularity, a point at which the space-time curvature becomes infinite. It is a potential of energy-matter manifesting itself as nothingness. Hence, this nothingness (ain in Hebrew) is wholeness. ANI: The participant component of the self that aims to transcend spatiotemporality. It longs to waive the object and to reach inward toward predifferentiated unity. ANI CONSCIOUSNESS: The universal unitary consciousness present in all life forms and objects. ARICH-ANPIN: Long-suffering in Lurianic Kabbala. ATZMI: The interactive relational component of the self reaching outward toward the manipulation of the object. BERAITA: Refers to teachings outside of the Mishna. BREAKING OF THE VESSELS: See shevirat hakelim. COMPLEMENTARITY: A relationship in quantum mechanic. In the atomic and subatomic levels, underlying properties of particles may manifest themselves in contradictory forms at different times and under different experimental and observational conditions. Hence, the complementarity is a synchronizing relationship that bridges over these contradictions. The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics attests that the human consciousness, by a complementarity relationship with the physical system, effects an eigenstate of a wave or a particle. CONTINUUM: A continuous series of elements, usually a duality, with one changing in proportion to the other as they move along between the poles. COSMOGONY: The creation of the cosmos.

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DASEIN: According to Heidegger, the state of being-in-the-world and knowing it. DETERMINISM: Linking by a continuous causal chain. DEMIOURGOS: The Gnostic evil entity, which by the Gnostic participant bias is responsible for the creation of the world, judged vile by the Gnostics. DIACHRONIC: The movement of sequences from one space-time point to another. DIALECTICS: The integration of opposites into a third synthetic state. DIN: According to Theosophic Kabbala, the Stern-judgment rung of Divinity. DINIM: Plural of din DING-AN-SICH: Thing-in-itself, a notion in the philosophy of Kant. The intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself, not as it is known through perception, the restrictive conditions of space and time. EARLY ORALITY: The developmental phase of the infant at which no separate ego-boundary has as yet been coagulated around the nascent self. EGO BOUNDARY: The coagulated separate identity of the infant after leaving the pantheistic unity of early orality and crystallizing an individual “I”. FEEDING OF THE KELLIPOT: In Lurianic Kabbala, the theurgic infusions of vile elements into God. FIXATION: A developmental trauma that contributes to the crystallization of personality patterns. GNOSIS: The dualistic creeds developed in the Middle East before and concomitant with Christianity, according to which Good and evil have independent existence. GNOSTICISM: see Gnosis.

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HASSADIM: Plural of hessed. HESSED: According to Theosophic Kabbala, the Grace rung of Divinity. HINAYANA: Sanskrit for “The Little Vehicle”; the largely mystical Theravada school of Southern Buddhism, representative in the Buddhism of the North. HOLON: A stable, integrated structure equipped with self-regulatory devices and enjoying a considerable degree of autonomy. HOLONIC: A hierarchy of sub-wholes. INDETERMINISM: A dynamic containing a free-will decision. I-IT RELATIONSHIP: One of two relationships (I-it and I-Thou) from Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. An I-It relationship characterized by objectification, categorization, and utilization of each other. An I-it relationship has a subject-to-object orientation, which signifies the usual alienation between the self and other. ITY: The structured Tantalus Ratio within the self. Its synthesizing agent. I-THOU RELATIONSHIP: One of two relationships (I-it and I-Thou) from Buber’s philosophy of dialogue. An I-Thou relationship is an intersubjective dialogue, where each party engages the dialogue without preconceived notions or self-centered needs, facilitating an utmost identification with the other. KABBALA: The main body of Jewish mysticism developed mostly in thirteenth-century Spain and sixteenth-century Safed, Palestine. KELLIPOT: The outer shells of pollution in Kabbala. LATER ORALITY: The developmental phase of the infant after a separate ego-boundary has been formed around the individual’s self. LURIANIC KABBALA: The sixteenth-century Jewish mystical school developed by Isaac Luria and his disciples in Safed, Palestine.

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Glossary

MAGGID OF MESERITZ: Refers to a disciple of the Besht that took over the reigns of Hassidic leadership when the Besht died. MAIEUTICALLY: Teaching by a Socratic midwifery so that the student feels as if he invented (“gave birth to”) his knowledge himself. In physics, an indirect trigger. MAHAYANA: “The Great Vehicle" is the largest and most influential of the three main forms of Buddhism. Mahayana emphasizes that the goal of an individual is not to pass out of this world into nirvana, but to attain enlightenment, and then to show compassion by returning to this world to help those in need. MATRINORMATIVE: The inculcation of norms through maternal authority. MEDEN AGAN: A Greek principle meaning “nothing in excess”. MIDRASH: The traditional and mythological interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. MISHNA: A part of the Talmud consisting of a collection of oral religious laws of Judaism. MYTHO-EMPIRICISM: The utilization of myths as empirical anchors for physical, metaphysical, and bio-psycho-social pressures. MYTHOGENIC STRUCTURE: The mythogenic structure is a complementarily between man’s Tantalic, participant longing and his Sisyphean, separant quests. ORDNUNG MUSS SEIN: maintained”.

A German phrase meaning “order must be

PARTICIPATION: The identification of ego with a person (persons), an object or a symbolic construct outside himself, and his striving to lose his separate identity by fusion with this other object or symbol. PATRINORMATIVE: The inculcation of norms through paternal authority. PLANÉ: To be immersed in the error inherent in temporal existence in space and time.

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PISTIS SOPHIA: An important treatise on Gnostic teachings. These are esoteric teachings said to have been given by Jesus to his disciples. SCATTERING OF THE DIVINE SPARKS: A Kabbalist sequel to the breaking of the vessels. SEFIROT: The ten rungs that, according to the Kabbala, constitute the building of the holonic entities of both divinity and creation. SEPARATION: Aims to sever, disjoin, and differentiate ego from his surrounding life forms and objects. SHEVIRAT HAKELIM: Hebrew for “breaking of the vessels” is a Kabbalist myth according to which a cosmic disaster, not intended by Divinity, damaged both Divinity and creation. Thus, sparks of God were scattered into spatio-temporality and embedded into each object and life form. SOLIPSISM: The sense of the self being a unique and exclusive possessor of real consciousness and knowledge of the cosmos. STRUCTURE: A holistic system characterized by transformation and self regulation. SYMBOLON: A Greek word of which derived the English word symbol. SYNCHRONIC: Coincidence in point of time. TALMUD: A collection of ancient rabbinic writings on Jewish civil religious law, as well as Judaic Aggadic law. TELEOLOGICAL: From the Greek telos – directed toward specific aims, goals, or purposes. THEOGONY: The branch of theology dealing with the creation, origin and descent of the gods or deities. THEURGY: Human interaction with Divinity. THING-IN-ITSELF: See Ding-an-sich.

300

Glossary

TIKKUN: In the Kabbala, the theurgic “mending” of God by man by means of prayer and righteous behavior. UNIVERSAL THOU: Also known as “Eternal Thou”, it is Buber’s conceptualizing of Transcendence in dialogue, which has elements of our “pure” ani-consciousness, as well as the conception of existentialist mytho-empiricism. VECTOR: A directional power. ZIVUG: In the Kabbala, the coupling between the Midat HaRahamim, the rung of hessed (grace) representing participant masculinity, and the feminine Midat Hadin, the Stern-judgement.

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