Insights from the Middle Ages?

In modern physics, the discovery of a Unified Field Theory (or Theory of Everything) is considered the “Holy Grail” quest. Obviously, 800 years ago the original quest for the Holy Grail was quite unrelated to our modern scientific notion. But I wonder on closer inspection if the symbolism behind the grail legend might actually be more relevant to the human condition.

The earliest known written account of the Holy Grail is found in Chrétien de Troyes' Old French poem "Perceval, the Story of the Grail" (written around 1180 but never finished). This was the period between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades and prior to the beginning of the Inquisition in 1233 against the Cathars in France. Over the years numerous iterations of the poem were written by other authors.

The gist of the story is that our young knight (Parsifal) is on a quest to heal the wounded Fisher King (and the country he rules). He’s advised to be sure to ask the right questions when he meets with the king. And each time during multiple dinners, the same set of various objects are paraded before the king and the young knight repeatedly fails to ask the question. Traditional exoteric religious symbolism aside, there are esoteric Gnostic insights buried within this story. The wounded Fisher King is the injured self, seeking a nurturing cure (the fish) from the depths of the water (the unconscious). Seen within the context of lucid dreaming, the parade of objects is symbolic of one’s stream of consciousness with the grail being a clue to the cure. Parsifal “asking the right question” is the conscious self becoming aware within the dream and establishing lucidity and a meaningful dialog with the unconscious. So at least in literature, our ancestors could have been aware of the power of lucid dreaming and that self-realization is the ultimate goal in life (whether it be for a flawed world leader or for a wounded self).

Hebrew ontology acknowledged the sanctity of natural law with Psalm 33:6 – “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made". Through a modern lens the “word” refers to the laws of physics that govern how our universe operates. So you might say that physics is ultimately the “Language of God” albeit a concept that is not easily relatable to the human experience. So various religions have come up with their own notions of who we are and how we relate to the Divine. And for the most part these are exoteric doctrines, targeted for easy adoption by the masses. In modern times, in our haste to shed the shackles of religious dogma, western science has embraced an atheistic, reductionist and materialistic view of that sacred language called physics. We can applaud the justification for a scientific method but not the limited scope of the inquiry.

So we lost our true grail quest and settled for the tangled mess within String Theory. When we eliminated the concepts of Consciousness and Spirituality from our search for a greater ontological understanding, we doomed ourselves to a very limited model of reality. So what should we really expect in our new ontology?

Ontological Expectations

So how does Parsifal’s grail quest for self-realization and healing relate to the holy grail of physics? If physics is the Language of God, shouldn’t understanding the ontology of physics bring us closer to our understanding of the Divine? Clearly life itself is the ultimate magic. Unfortunately we will never understand the full majesty of the creator behind this miracle. Religions may attempt to define god and how to act righteously, but if we can personally experience how the magic operates within us, we can get closer to understanding and guiding our own personal spiritual journey. And if there is a common language that all of us can use to describe how we operate, then perhaps a diversity of dialogs can contribute to a more harmonious, mutually connected world culture and reality.

It does sound preposterous to propose that one could attain such an expanded clarity and awareness from knowing just the bare physics equations. But the assumption is that these laws of physics, which govern our existence at the atomic level, happen to be a pattern that is abstracted all the way up to the human ontological level as well. So if we can understand how this metaphysical ontology operates we can better understand our own true nature. And that is the journey of young Parsifal in his quest to know himself and to bring wholeness and healing to the world.

"People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.”

― Walter Isaacson writing about Albert Einstein

So what are the Fundamentals?

Seems to me if you want to build your ontological model, you need to start with the most fundamental building blocks.

Let’s Play with Blocks!

Using the International System of Units

But surely our building blocks must have some fundamental interrelationships…

Establishing Matrix Relationships

Each block now has three expressions based on which other block it relates to.

Add the Physics Equations

Equations look familiar?

Unexpected Consequences

Good Grief! The Definitions of Body, Mind & Soul, You Say?!
Could our Ontology possibly be so simple?

A Tripartite Reality?

Most researchers working to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics are approaching the task from a mathematical/geometric framework. Any other approach has never been an option within the reductionist viewpoint of traditional theoretical physicists. That is just the only language they know.

Are contemporary physicists stuck in the same predicament as the gifted Ptolemaic astronomers of the middle ages, where ultra complicated calculations based on a geocentric model had to be severely kludged to have any predictive value? They were totally missing the most elegant and simple solution based on a sun centered system. Needless to say, in this day and age it’s also quite possible to have a brilliant mind hindered by a mindset closed to broader perspectives.

As stated earlier in this document, if you aren’t looking for something, you’re not likely to find it. And even if you are trying to define consciousness, if you are unwilling to observe your own consciousness, what insights could you have?

I realize that the staggering simplicity of the Synergy Physics model can elicit skepticism from an academic community used to complex mathematical abstractions. Who would have guessed that an integrated system’s perspective on Einstein’s Photoelectric Equation could have summed up so much of our reality…? The irony is that all the known core equations have been verified and sitting there for over a century. It’s just putting them all together in a unified interconnected system that is new.

It’s tempting to propose that the universe is an intersection of three planes of existence (Body, Mind & Soul). But that is a bit too simplistic, not only because the Soul plane encompasses the other two planes, but also the term “plane” itself may not be applicable or even fully defined. It’s more useful to think of the system as just a tightly integrated relationship diagram that has dramatic implications.

Using Lorentzian geometry (or whatever construct dejour) to describe this unified system would be a major breakthrough and lead to advancements in applied physics. That’s great but our track record is not good after a century of theoretical research. The insights we get from viewing the whole system itself is something much more vital than knowing the geometry of the material world, it’s a totally new perspective on ontology. It’s who we are and how we operate as human beings.

World history has many dramatic paradigm shifts in the use of language. The spoken word arose roughly 300,000 years ago. The Sumerian invention of written cuneiform in 3100 BC was huge. Then around 1800 BC the Semites in Egypt developed Proto-Sinaitic, an alphabetic script which opened literacy to the masses. The printing press in 1440 further expanded access to information. Then of course we had radio in the 1920’s, TV in the 30’s, computers in the 80’s and the Internet in 90’s. Now in the 2020’s, the introduction of artificial intelligence is totally revolutionizing our collective and individual brain power. It’s all happening at such a rapid rate that we may not be prepared for the inherent cultural impacts. I believe there are language tools available that can offer some worldview clarity in a world drifting into chaos.

A Metaphysical Matrix that is based on physics would be like a Universal Language (UL) for self-realization. This means an individual would now have tools to clearly understand their own archetypal landscape and tendencies and ways to improve their growth on the path to a more sacred humanity. Collectively, understanding and using the UL becomes a perpetual cultural work in progress and a spiritual development process, rather than a static and often hypocritical religious belief. A shared UL framework across cultures and languages also yields new ways for cross fertilization and harmony between those different perspectives.

Why is greater self-realization so important? Clearly, in today’s world it’s becoming obvious that there are millions of people who are disconnected from any sense of inner reality. They have no capacity to deal with the world based on their own perceptions and experiences. It’s all about superstition and echoing the word of religious and political authorities. And this facilitates the degrading of democracy and the rise of dark demagoguery. Sadly, we are all zombies to one degree or another based on how connected we are with our own soul.

But a sophisticated ontological map itself would not be without risk. This would be a huge breakthrough in developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which has huge potential for positive and negative outcomes. While offering individuals great insights into how to develop their spirituality; when exploited by bad actors such as fascist governments, it could also be a way to categorize and judge politically incorrect behavior and to manipulate the masses.

Back in 1968, when I was a young student at U.C.Berkeley, I had a notion that there was some kind of universal matrix that could chart out the archetypes that define our human condition. This vision was in the realm of an advanced psychological map that would carry on the work of C.G.Yung. That didn’t pan out but the germ of the idea still felt valid. I came to the conclusion that if I could better understand the core interrelating concepts in Physics (a “systems” view), that same framework of relationships might be mirrored in a new metaphysics. After 56 years of research and meditation, we have that metaphysics. It’s still a work in progress (and will always be refined over generations). This is a big leap of faith (chiefly for physicists) but a few self-reflective souls might find some resonance with their personal sensibility.

Now we can view the matrix with metaphysical correlates.

(The relationships mirror those in the physics equations. “>” arrows in opposite direction indicate an inverse relationship, while arrows in same direction indicate a directly proportional relationship.)

 

 

 

We expand with plus/minus and add Archetypal Characters.

(The Archetypal Characters represent the various core aspects of ourselves.)

 

 

 

Finally, we add healthy/unhealthy traits.

Notice that the core Soul relationships are primary.
They are being moderated by Body & Mind partners.

 

A Modern Day Mythology?

Seems like a major dichotomy in Theology has been the contrast between Monotheism and Polytheism (other than the long tension between Gnosticism and institutionalized religious dogma). When you step back, you can see how both approaches are totally compatible. With Monotheism there is one Divine Creation, with the universal laws of physics that govern the universe. And extrapolated from those laws are the metaphysical laws that are reflected in our own human ontology. So just as we see the Greeks and their Olympic Pantheon, the Hindus and their deities, and the astrologers with their astronomical influences, there is an attempt with our metaphysics to chart the archetypal characteristics and understand how their relationships define our existence.

We no longer need to assume that these archetypes are from a pantheon external to our lives. But you could say the four core Spirit archetypes are personal demigods since they are a direct potential connection with the Divine Spirit. We don’t have control over our inherited genes or the cultural context in which we were raised, but it is the Spiritual realm where we can find guidance to get closer to our true and best selves. Understanding our dreams is the first step in finding that self-realization.

 

What’s Next?

In terms of improving the presentation of the theory, the logical next step is to bring it to life with a story based concept where one could vicariously observe the human ontological dynamics at work.

As a dream worker, I feel that if we can use this language as a map and guide to understanding our dreams, that would be a very healthy first step. The dreams provide the stories that are anchored in the mystery of who we are. When we unravel the mystery, we unfold the potential to be our best selves.

Ultimately I would like to develop an educational game that would aid in learning this universal language of human ontology. Perhaps allow the user to customize their own archetypal characters to match their own self-identity and experience.

I have a feeling that theoretically, we are all inherently a version of young Parsifal. Our wounded selves may be different, but we can all share the process by which we journey to our full potential.

So if any of this resonates, let me know at sbrenner@archetype.org