The Negative Rational Stages - Introduction

 

The basics of experience can be explained quite simply in dynamic mathematical terms.

The unconscious - in its pure form - is dynamically neutral with complementary poles, carrying equal positive (+) and negative (-) signs.

Consciousness involves the separation of these poles. One pole - which is revealed in experience - is dynamically posited in phenomenal form. The other pole which remains concealed is simultaneously dynamically negated and repressed in the unconscious.

This causes an imbalance in terms of the neutral unconscious causing a reverse inward move in consciousness towards the self which is then also posited in consciousness. Thus experience keeps switching in this manner as between positing of the world and positing of the self.

Thus though the unconscious remains vital - even in conventional experience - as a dynamic switching device (between world and self) it remains merely implicit and not formally recognised. In other words the unconscious is not given an opportunity in the rational paradigm to properly develop.

Some individuals are especially sensitive to the imbalance that this causes. While searching for spiritual integration - usually on the threshold of adulthood - they find something fundamental missing and a true existential crisis develops. They become increasingly disillusioned and unable to fit in with conventional expectations. After perhaps a considerable period of blind searching the crisis is resolved - sometimes suddenly - in a mysterious and unexpected fashion.

This phase is well documented in the Christian ascetical tradition and commonly referred to as purgation. Terms such as "learned ignorance" and "cloud of unknowing" have also been used. What it involves is literally the dynamic undoing or negation of conscious phenomena in experience.

The conscious mind is developed by moving out from the unconscious in the dynamic positing of phenomena. The unconscious mind in turn is developed through a reverse backward movement from the conscious in the dynamic negation of these phenomena. Here consciousness of phenomena is literally undone and holistic intuitive capacity increased.

I have referred to these holistic structures as mirror structures, reverse structures and anti-structures. Most simply they - in terms of direction - are negative structures which complement the positive structures of rational consciousness.

So one now understands that all phenomena in experience have both external (positive) and internal (negative) directions. The external direction represents the dynamic appearance of phenomena in experience. The internal direction represents the consequent (dynamic) disappearance of the same phenomena from experience. Needless to say phenomena now enjoy a relative rather than an absolute existence.

The implications of this world-view are startling. Experience is now two dimensional. Every fact, every concept, every hypothesis is complemented by a corresponding anti-fact, anti-concept, anti-hypothesis.

To illustrate, the Pythagorean Theorem is complemented by an anti-theorem. In absolute static terms both theorem and anti-theorem are identical. However in dynamic relative terms they are opposite. Thus at this level the truth of all mathematical (as well as scientific) knowledge is strictly relative.

The basic principle at all these "higher" levels is that physical and psychological reality are complementary. "Higher" level psychological understanding reads "lower" level physical reality. When one level changes (as psychological understanding does here), the other level must necessarily change in complementary fashion.

All physical objects therefore now have (in dynamic terms) two directions (external and internal). Matter is complemented by anti-matter. Close to its holistic fundamental ground of energy, particles become increasingly dynamic switching direction continually as between matter and anti-matter states. Clearly at this level of material organisation the conventional paradigm is no longer adequate and unable to provide the appropriate intuition to interpret the phenomena observed.