Posts Tagged ‘worldview’

Archetype of the Paradigm

Archetype of the paradigm There is an archetype that millions of people are in the grip of in a way that controls them, imprisons them, and denies them their full potential. It is generally called the paradigm of the western mind. It could also be called the worldview or even the religion of most western people – religion because actually it is a belief system. However, if you asked most people in the streets of western cities about it they would not say they believed in what is being called a paradigm, they would insist it is reality.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a paradigm as – “A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.”

We could say, in regard to the western mind, that many of us share ‘assumptions, concepts, values’ and prejudices that are at the base of how we believe life to be, and that we consider to be reality. However, if we examine this ‘reality’ we see it is made up of a set of theories and beliefs that have become cultural and generally accepted. The imprisoning aspect of this is that we take these assumptions, these theories of what reality is, to be reality itself. We actually see and live in the world as if what are shifting theories is concretely real.

In its simplest form, the paradigm mentioned can be described as having arisen from the mechanistic ideas of Newtonian physics, in which the universe was seen as a huge mechanical device. As Newtonian physics developed, the fundamental particle of the universe was defined as the atom. Nothing in scientific research at the time could prove that anything existed beyond the atom, and the atom is a physical object. Therefore, nothing other than physical substance was ‘real’. This, so it appeared, disproved the possibility of personal awareness being anything other than some trick of chemicals, molecules and atoms in the brain and body. There could be no spirit or life after death because, after all, we are only atoms! Nothing in our consciousness can exist unless it is produced by the physical brain.

Recently a feature about near death experiences appeared in New Scientist – (issue 2573 of 17 October 2006, page 48-50). It examined the subject and attempted to explain it all by brain chemicals or REM dreaming, still seen in the light of physical brain activities. To remain in this narrow paradigm (set of beliefs or theories), it left out any phenomena such as people who were apparently without any brain activity, and so completely unconscious, being able to report events at a distance from their seemingly dead body. This is typical of how this paradigm limits individuals within its grasp. It literally controls personal perceptions so that the subject actually sees the world, experiences reality, exactly as it dictates reality to be.

Richard Tarnas, in his book Cosmos and Psyche, says of this paradigm of the western mind, “As with all powerful myths, we have been, and many perhaps remain, largely unconscious of this historical paradigm’s hold on our collective imagination. It animates the vast majority of contemporary books and essays, editorial columns, book reviews, science articles, research papers, and television documentaries, as well as political, social, and economic policies, It is so familiar to us, so close to our perception, that in many respects it has become our common sense, the form and foundation of our self image as modern humans.”

Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf studied several languages and found that the Hopis could create a consistent universe without using our meanings for time, energy, space and matter. In other words they saw the universe and their external and internal reality according to their paradigm. They went on to say that we lump together isolated perceptions into a totality – we have to be taught this – and what we are taught is what everybody agrees on. The world is an agreement. But what lies beyond our agreement? What lies beyond our paradigm?

In 1900 Max Planck proposed a revolutionary new view of the universe in publishing the quantum theory. Since then the theory has gathered strength through an enormous amount of research, and is suggesting a universe in which the atom is by no means the fundamental material of our body or the cosmos. In fact it says that the core of our being is an almost indescribable condition of infinite potential. They go so far as to say that we are co-creators of the world we live in, as our personal awareness changes the nature of the things surrounding us.

Research into the particles and processes beyond the atom is also opening the door to what is described as a multidimensional universe, or as David Deutsch calls it, the multiverse, or multiple universes.

Of course, that is another paradigm. It is another set of theories offering another way of experiencing reality. But reality is simply what it is, and human theories or religious beliefs, while they help us understand and relate to reality, are not reality itself. You and I, in our fullness are reality. To meet reality we must enter into self enquiry, not just with intellectual questions, but with the willingness to experience ourselves beyond the boundaries of our normal paradigm and prejudices.

To step out of the paradigm of the western mind, or any other paradigm, the path of self enquiry and direct experience of the reality you are is the only way. In the past this has often been called ‘illumination’ or ‘enlightenment’ – but think of it simply as direct experience of yourself.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What paradigm am I living within and controlled by?

How can I open the windows of this paradigm I am within and look out?

Have I ever had glimpses beyond the paradigm I grew up in?

To fully experience a dream and explore it – not interpret it – is a journey beyond our paradigm, as also is the methods of self realisation. Read Life’s Little Secrets – LifeStream – Acting on Your Dream – or Enlightenment Intensives in the USA or UK they really work.

Archetype of the Fugitive

To forever feel you must avoid intimate human contact; to forever be running from something that is hard to define; to never be able to feel that where one is in life is home, is a place to relax in, is a place where you can feel peace and look around and take in the world, instead of looking around to see where danger is – these are signs of the fundamental feeling of alienation or aloneness.

All of these have anxiety or the fear reaction as their root. As fear is one of the major reactions to life, archetypical patterns of behaviour have developed around the fear response. The description of the little boy at the beginning of the section on archetypes who was lost and running frantically is an example of behaviour which is not developed out of personal experience, but is instinctive or archetypical.

In modern Western culture, where religious, social, family and work connections are no longer as stable or meaningful as they were just a few generations ago, many of us face this sense of alienation or of not belonging. Richard Tarnas, in his book Cosmos and Psyche says that this situation of finding ourselves alienated from the world, from nature, from each other and the cosmos, is a crisis Western society and individuals are facing at the moment. This makes it an archetypal influence in our lives, affecting almost all of us.

Being the fugitive in our dream, or relating to one, may also suggest an avoidance of something. The fear may be that of being overwhelmed by ones urges, such as anger or sexual desire; it may be a response to past hurts that we find difficult to meet. It may, as often happens, be a habit which developed in earliest infancy as a survival fear reaction to not feeling safe – such as might happen to a premature baby who was not held and made to feel wanted, and is therefore exposed to the overwhelming sense of abandonment.

The following example is typical of a basic anxiety reaction to something that may have no external reality – based perhaps on past pains or fears, or present worried speculation about what MIGHT happen in ones life. The thing one is running from remains unclear because we don’t know what it is. The old bogey man fear is shaking chains out of sight, and our hair stands on end. It is helpful to stop and face such fears and recognise them as chimera we create out of our own memories or worries. See: anxiety; nightmare; Am I meeting the things I fear in my dream under processing dreams.

I am in a light, green forest, no gaps in trees. I am running away from something and am very frightened. I can hear loud breathing, like someone is running. I keep running and bang into a tree while looking behind me. I think I see a very unshaped, black very tall thing. I fall down to the ground. Time passes, maybe a few seconds. I looked behind me again and start running. Looking behind me I see the black thing. All around me is like bad home movies, all jumping up and down. I can see myself from the air, then wake. Poppy S.

That is a very powerful description of being a fugitive from fear.

N. D. Browne, in a paper published in the International Journal of Psycho Analysis, (December 1987) states that one of the causes of fugitive dreams is ‘early sexual overstimulation – leading as it does to precocious erotization and rage.’ To protect against being overwhelmed by sensations and emotion, and thus the fear of losing oneself, or self control, the person remains apart from others to disguise rage and inner deadness.

However, that is only one possible reason for our meeting with the fugitive archetype. Other reasons are that at some time in your life you may have made a life decision that you are different from others, do not fit into the group you live in, are an immigrant from another culture living in what might feel like an alien environment or social atmosphere, or that you have faced harsh accusations or judgement at some time.

The positive side of this archetype is that you are no longer captured or immersed in the view of life or social responses that are taken for granted around you. For instance your peers may believe that it is a great pleasure to get drunk each weekend, but your alienation from them enables you to escape from that worldview. It might have the same influence in regard to religion, politics and the general worldview around you. It might also enable you to take new directions, explore unusual ways of doing things or thinking about things. It can therefore be a useful influence to creativity. See Archetype of the Outcast.

The negative side to the influence is that we might really feel antagonistic to the group around us, and thus be unable to interact with them. It can also lead to feeling isolated and abandoned. Sometimes enormous anger and destructiveness arises out of this, and is probably involved in a great deal of social destructiveness or terrorism.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I aware of feelings of isolation or of avoiding others – if so can I recognise their source in the past or present?

Am I running away from or avoiding some of my own feelings through fear, guilt or shame?

Do I feel I don’t fit into modern society, or sense a lack of connection and isolation?