The Magic of Technology

The Magic of Technology

In theoretical physics there is a very famous experiment in which an electron gun is fired at a target. A camera placed next to the target records that each electron arrives as if travelling in a straight line. However,  further observation reveals that, in spite of appearances, if the electrons are watched by technical apparatus at a point midway between gun and target, they show signs of deviating from the direct path and, as it were, choosing one amongst many alternative paths to the goal, that is, each electron chooses from a plethora of possibilities within what the physicists describe as a ‘probability wave’, a notion that gave birth to the theory of parallel universes or multi-realities and which has some significance for us in our concerns with transcendent consciousness or higher levels of functioning. In short, the extrapolated conclusion would be that, if human consciousness can be said to be responsible for determining the reality which it inhabits, then it must also be possible, by changing the level of consciousness or neurological functioning - either developmentally organic, biochemically, or some kind of fusion of the two approaches - to choose which world to inhabit or even produce alternative worlds through the power of what psychologist Carl Gustav Jung referred to as creative imagination.

A famous science fiction writer, when asked about ‘Virtual Reality’ (William Gibson) replied with a question of his own, ”What’s the difference between reality and ‘virtual reality’?” He supplied the answer himself in the form of a further question: ”Is there one?” From the point of view of a physicist, the world is a ‘hard light system’, that is, each thing in it is a ‘wave form’ - complicated in the case of human beings and not-so-complicated in the case of a table or chairs, the point being that ‘wave forms’ are not ‘solid’, they fluctuate constantly; or, in other words, their status is merely one of - to coin a phrase - ‘constant probability’. What this means is that the world each of us thinks we perceive might not be the world as it is or could be (or is the same for me as it is for you - although we might be able to agree about its content we might not be agreeing about the same thing). To put it another way, it is possible that the world behaves in a completely different way when we’re not looking than it does when we are’ and, furthermore, in connection with the ‘parallel worlds’, ‘probability wave’ theory, ‘what we see’ - or, perhaps, what we are is ‘what we get’, that is, by changing our consciousness we can change the reality we inhabit.

 From an educational standpoint, the Japanese have a concept of ‘Mu’ in which what appears in one’s field of vision/experiential domain is, in fact, ‘for us’ and, in a very real way, the creation of our minds - ‘we get’, as it were, ‘what we want’ in terms of our developmental requirements. I remember being told at school about America for the first time, for example, and then for me it existed - it became part of my ‘Mu’, as it were. Did it exist before I was told, or did the telling create America? If one told a different history with different countries etc., would that ‘reality’ exist for the child instead of ours, that is, would that reality be brought into being by the telling? In the parlance of Jungian psychology, what happens is that the archetype of the ‘Self’, corresponding in religious terms to ‘God’, provides opportunities for personal growth and enrichment, which is where the educator becomes important - as an interface between the child and its internal ‘mission’. The usual approach is for the child to be taught that the world is separate, apart from them, but if the growing infant is taught that, for example, the world is his/hers, like a virtual reality film script - to use the latest techspeak - in which the child can ‘write’ his/herself, but because he/she is small and vulnerable, its parents will guide and care for it until it is sufficiently developed enough to access the medium, the child’s relationship to, as it were ‘God’ is of a directly developmental or ‘personal’ one, that is,  what happens to the child as it grows is aimed directly at him/her in terms of his/her development or progress.

 The ‘particle gun’ situation is applicable, of course, to the visual interface between, let’s say, viewer and screen (be it television or computer) or camera/video technology, that is, it might also be possible to produce changes in one’s environment by interfacing with these media in the ways suggested; or, to put it another way, changes in one’s ‘directional consciousness’ (desires) can result in a ‘collapse of the wave form’ which is the t.v. or monitor screen to produce something akin to ‘telepathy’ but what might truly be called ‘television’ in the sense that ‘what we see’ or ‘produce’ on the screen/monitor in our homes is somehow communicated/translated into external reality by the power of the archetypal ‘Self’, i.e., God, in which case satellite dishes and other forms of aerial/cable would replace the crucifix as the mediator between man and the divine. So, is it simply a question of desiring or ‘wishing’ for ‘things’ using the medium of a t.v. screen? Not exactly, although there is a limited success factor in such an approach. However, much greater results are produced by using what might be called ‘the technology of archetypal psychology’, that is, the use of archetypal symbolism both to programme oneself to reach different/higher states of consciousness (thus changing one’s perceptions of reality/reality itself) by means of the ‘what we want is what we get’ scenario in which the environment that contains it is treated as a ‘computer system’ containing archetypal symbols/motifs that can be made to function as ‘icons’ much in the way that ‘clicking’ on icons in a computer programme can give access to different ‘windows’ or aspects of the ‘system’.

 How would this work? A Hungarian scientist working on the structure of the benzine molecule dreamt one night of  a serpent eating its own tail, a central motif in Jung’s theories of self-actualization or individuation, and the next day - as if by magic - the helical structure of the benzine molecule appeared in his mind. The point here being that, if we juxtapose archetypal symbolism or imagery associated with, let’s say maths or chemistry, then those images can stimulate the creativity of the brain/consciousness; or, in other words, by using appropriate archetypal material within the framework of textbooks or computer programmes - including the ”world-as-computer” - these images can act as catalysts for inner and outer developmental/environmental impulses.

 Educational level is, of course, important in terms of access to the ‘multiverse’ of alternative realities/systems available to the individual, for example, a woman from Manchester may have elements from symbolic structures as diverse as Egyptian mythological fragments, Tibetan mandalas, as well as imagery from the Judaeo-Christian tradition in her subconscious/unconscious mind. The point here being that knowledge of the various symbol systems/frameworks, which is the task of a Jungian ‘systems’ analyst, is essential both in providing ‘maps’ of the system(s), for example, the chakra system of energy points and their associated mental images/symbols in Kundalini yoga and the system of Sefiroths in the Kabbalah are but two such ‘maps’, ‘guides’ for the ‘user’ of such maps. In short, the greater one’s knowledge of the ‘symbolic territory’, the more possibilities you have for ‘access’ into ‘multiversal reality’.

 In the Occident, the emphasis has been upon logic in the form of Logos rather than Eros, which may have been necessary for the channelling of libido into the creation of a technological approach, but at the expense of the brain’s as-yet unmapped capacities (a human being, we are told, uses only 10% of its potential); in other words, the field of Eros is a ‘territory’ which needs to be opened up and fully explored if an individual is to unlock his/her ‘access’ potential. In Kundalini yoga the third chakra in the vicinity of the solar plexus is described rather poetically as a ‘plenitude of jewels’, a reference to its in potentiam character, corresponding in psychological parlance to the wealth of psychic contents waiting to receive actualization in the psyche of the individual. Unfortunately, it often represents the zenith of an individual’s aspirations, corresponding as it does to the results of socio-economic conditioning which says that work, marriage, and the raising of a family is ‘fulfilment’. Sex or Tantric yoga is, therefore, indicated in individuals who, for whatever reason, are unable to realise their blocked potential, which brings us into an area which I have called the ‘hieroglyphics of human sexuality’, an ancient form of symbolism familiar to us from Indian temples, Playboy and the Kama Sutra. If the ‘hieroglyphics of humanity’ can also be categorised as iconographical in the ways suggested - and the Tarot deck of the seer, in which the posturings of the characters depicted in the twenty-two major arcana are associated with the twenty-two letters of the Hebraic alphabet, suggests that they are - what might an analysis of their effects in terms of the ‘world-as-computer’ hypothesis reveal?

 Research would involve the stimulation and observation of the creative imaginations of subjects in relation to the available symbol maps in order to access correlations between ‘maps’ and ‘territory’ - both internally in terms of the collective unconscious and externally in terms of the affects produced by the use of archetypal ‘icons’. The implementation of a programme resulting in an understanding of the effects produced in the environment - involving possible computer technology/televisual audio linkages between human consciousness and the ‘world-as-computer’. An examination, involving aspects of behavioural psychology to discover the effects produced by ‘human hieroglyphics’ - possibly involving sex therapists/pornography. The use of hypnotherapy or hypnagogic drugs to ‘unlock’ or ‘unchain’ the consciousness of the subject - though not recommended - is not ruled out. The use of ‘archetypal archaeology’, that is, the use of archetypal ‘icons’ to ‘access’ racial memories - perhaps involving regression therapy - to, as it were, ‘visit’ the past; or, and which might be more exciting in terms of the implementation of futuristic technologies, if certain products of the past were, as some contend, designed/constructed by ‘visitors’ from other worlds/dimensions, ‘accessing’ that alien psychology/psyche to make ‘contact’ with their now-living ancestors through what might be described as projection therapy, that is, producing/creating future technology by accessing the developmental archetypes of perhaps alien psychologies as preserved in myth, folklore, stone and image.