Chapter Four: Biology As Metaphor and Mythology

We are living in stimulating and revolutionary times. For, even as we watch, the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm is collapsing in the ocean of the new physics, "matter" is being swept away by "wavicles," and scientists are beginning to acknowledge what the poet-seers have always known: that physical reality is metaphor, that the external world and all its components are subtle yet elaborate webs thrown upon the formless, meaningful forms created from no-thing-ness . . . that matter is metaphor for Consciousness—which is the only real stuff knowable about existence, in fact is the only stuff of the universe.

Physicist and astronomer, Arthur Stanley Eddington (1928) phrased it: "The stuff of the world is mind-stuff." More recently, University of Minnesota physicist Roger S. Jones (1982) unveiled a position which he calls an "idealistic reevaluation of the physical world" (p. ix). He writes

Even more recently, anthropologist Armand Labbe (1991) summed it up at a Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness conference saying, "Ultimately our physics . . . is going to demonstrate that essentially there is no such thing as matter. All there is, is mind and motion."

Granted, this is an extreme position, a strict Idealist stance. But it is the only truly supportable one, in light of what we know from the new physics. That would be enough in itself to cause us to reflect on it. But this perspective is also supported, even demonstrated, by the discoveries of the "new psychology" as well. But more about that later.

It is ironic that it would be the most "materialistic" and "hardest" of the sciences that would be leading the charge against the primacy-of-the-physical-world postulate (and, unfortunately, leaving the rest of the sciences—both social as well as natural sciences—behind). The discoveries from quantum physics, though some of them almost a hundred years old now, are, only with difficulty, being assimilated into the other sciences. For the most part, they are largely ignored; science going along "as if" . . . that is, as if the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm were still viable, as if the physical world was really "objective" reality, as if the mind could validly be considered an epiphenomenon of brain activity. So the old paradigm holds sway despite its inadequacy.

This is understandable, however. For truly acknowledging these newer perspectives requires a reformulation of theoretical positions, a rethinking of the universe in much the same way that astronomical theories needed to be reformulated after the Copernican revolution. What we do not need are theories that disfigure themselves in trying to incorporate some (not all) of the new information and new perspectives in the way of the convoluted theories of the pre-Copernican astronomers who refused to accept the newer paradigm, heliocentric postulations.

This work, to the contrary, attempts to consistently present a new-paradigm perspective.

In doing so it includes a rethinking of some theoretical constructions associated with Ken Wilber who, from this analysis, appears as inconsistent as pre-Copernican astronomers in devolving his theories.

It may also be argued that the new-paradigm primacy of consciousness is irrelevant to much of what is done in normal science. Whatever the truth of that, it must be acknowledged that theoretical positions that ignore the very foundations upon which they are based—that is, the subjectivity of the observer—are going to be weaker for that. Yet, acknowledging even that, one could argue that there is no clear idea of how to go about applying these new perspectives. How could they be used? How could they be relevant? What implications might they have?

It is in answer to these questions that I offer the following analysis of how these perspectives could be used in the understanding of child development. I propose a devolutional model—one that is rooted in Wilber's (1977) "spectrum of consciousness" theory. It is based also in the findings of new-paradigm experiential psychotherapies—that is, those that place primacy upon experience over concept, "territory" over "map," and percept over object.

The implications of this approach, I hope to show, are for no less than the validity of the current direction of child-caring, the effectiveness of mainstream psychiatric approaches, and the direction of psychological and spiritual growth. It is my belief that such implications will not be considered to be irrelevant or unimportant; and I will deal with them at length in Part 3.

Biology As Metaphor

At any rate, the knowable premise of the new science is that our physical world is a construction (of consciousness); that it can be metaphor, only, of the unknowable That Which Is; that, therefore, matter is metaphor. It follows that the sciences, which study this reflection of the unknowable Real, provide metaphors about metaphors.

Nonetheless, these metaphors—cognizant of their practical value; these metaphors—because of the fact of their being for the empirical world a reflection or "mirror," which we then call "physical facts," "objective reality," or "scientific truths"; these metaphors can be analyzed in the same way that dream symbols are analyzed, that is, to uncover their deeper meanings.

Furthermore, this uncovering means essentially that we can discern their meanings for ourselves; "deeper meaning" being that understanding that relates the symbol to ourselves and that gives us understanding of our inner and outer actions and guidance for such behavior. In this way we can relate these "ideas about ideas," these scientific truths, back to our empirical, experiential, subjective reality . . . back to the base that they were originally the reflections and mirrors of. Thus we can come full circle, looking at ourselves from both inside as well as outside and approaching, to the degree that a person can, a fuller understanding of ourselves and the world with which we are inseparable.

Specifically, then, for our purposes here, in looking at the biological sciences' metaphors of the human body—especially as concerns its structure, function, and ontogenetic and phylogenetic developments—we can discern and analyze an "underlying" meaning—a reflection of the Real, or of what Wilber (1977) calls Mind. 1

My attempt here is to skeletonize a portion of such an overall endeavor to show how it can be done and what kinds of meanings can arise. I will relate stages in the ontogenetic development of the human body to the dualities (splittings) of consciousness that, according to Wilber (1977), create the spectrum of consciousness.

Specifically, I will correlate the patterns of change in both form and experience (feeling) that a human undergoes with levels of consciousness. I will do this beginning with the sperm and egg; through the fetal, newborn, child, and adolescent forms; to the adult. What I am saying is that the forms that characterize the biological history of each individual (as delineated by the science of biology) and the processes that characterize the psychological history of each individual (as reported to us in the psychological sciences of the new experiential growth modalities and especially through the phenomenon of re-experience) reflect, and correlate with, the changes in consciousness that Wilber describes as creating the spectrum of consciousness.

Is this reductionistic? Am I saying that our ontogenetic development creates or causes the spectrum of consciousness? No. I no more mean that ontogeny creates the spectrum than that ontogeny creates phylogeny (in that, as they say, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny").

One might deduce, however, that since this ontogenetic development is prior (in time) to the spectrum that we observe and study in the Now, a cause-and-effect relationship is the most likely connection. But I must respond that this assumes the primacy of the physical form (in its ontogenetic development) over consciousness. This presupposition is a cornerstone of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm. Nevertheless, the very existence of consciousness or experience at the earliest levels I will be discussing ( viz., sperm, egg, zygote, and fetal) disputes the primacy-of-the-physical-universe postulate. To put it bluntly, consciousness can hardly be an epiphenomenon of brain activity if it exists when the brain does not.

This fact points inevitably to the primary reality/existence of something like Consciousness, Spirit, or Mind (or at least Energy) (see Chapter Two and Adzema, 1985). Therefore, this type of (impossible-to-have-existed-as-experience-or-to-be-existing-as-memory-according-to-the-N-C-paradigm) experience can hardly be called the cause of the spectrum of consciousness. Indeed, something that cannot possibly exist within a paradigm can hardly be marshalled in to explain something within that paradigm.

However, if we accept the paradigm in which Consciousness, not form, is fundamentally real (which is exactly what we must do if we are going to look at evidence which supports, if not confirms, such a paradigm), and if we still want to accept the controversial concept of cause and effect, then the most we can really say is that prior experience of consciousness contributes to its later modifications. This perspective is certainly worthy of consideration.

But were it true that prior experience causes the later modifications of Consciousness (or as Wilber terms it, "Mind"), that truth is congruent with an analysis such as this one that considers form as to its metaphorical heuristic value in understanding experience and existence (or Mind, Consciousness) as it is immediately apperceived in the only Reality of Now. As Wilber (1977) makes adequately clear, from the only Real perspective of Here and Nowness, Absolute Subjectivity, or Mind, all "past" events are nonreal (i.e., illusory) reflections of the Reality that is Now; they have no existence outside of this Now, so can hardly be called "causes" of Now.

From the perspective of Now, of Mind, of Absolute Subjectivity—which is the essence of the new paradigm—there is no cause and effect; there are only patterns of relationship existing Now. Hence these "prior" events are reflections of the immediate Reality, existing simultaneously in the Now as reflections, as metaphors. It is in this sense that they can be analyzed hermeneutically for their heuristic value in understanding the spectrum of consciousness as it arises this instant in the sole Eternal Moment.

The Legitimacy of Cellular Memory

Despite what I have just said concerning the importance of an analysis of the biological metaphors of form—especially as they exist on the cellular level surrounding conception—as reflecting something of importance to us in a hermeneutic or heuristic sense, I want to at least put out a case for the legitimacy of cellular memory as something in its own right. That is, the rest of Part 2 will be based on a comparison of Wilber's spectrum of consciousness with the observable events and forms (the behaviors of the specific biological forms) as they are known to occur through the observational aspects of the science of biology. Still, the interpretation between the philosophical system and the biological form will be aided, supported, and fed by, among other things, the direct experience of memories of these states and forms, down even to the earliest, by myself and by the reports of such experiences by others through the phenomenon of re-experience.

So while this analysis does not stand on the absolute veracity of those experiences by myself or by others, still the analysis is certainly aided and helped by a belief in their legitimacy. I will say a few words about how memory can occur of such events, and more importantly, how that memory can be related to the foundations of our consciousness. A complete explanation (as I see it) of exactly this—e.g., of how sperm and egg and zygote experience can lead to fundamental mythological, philosophical, and basic assumptions on the world, the self, and reality—can be found in two other recent works of mine (1994a, 1994b).

One explanation is consistent with Rupert Sheldrake's (1981) theory. It can be stated this way: That concerning Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, if things are done a particular way, they tend to be done that particular way in the future. He gives the example of ritual. A ritual is performed in the same way it has been for thousands of years, and there is a perceived potency in doing it that way in that there is somehow an accumulated power in each subsequent repetition of that act. He contends that somehow the field, the field of form, the morphogenetic field, is strengthened, the pattern is strengthened. Therefore when one re-enacts that pattern one is tapping into the field, via morphic resonance, that has been established.

Let us turn our attention now to thinking in terms of certain patterns that happen, for example, on the cellular level, to certain patterns that have been enacted for millennia. Keep in mind that Rupert Sheldrake's theory is not just concerning human beings and their thoughts and actions but applies also to all of Nature and the entire universe. So there are morphogenetic fields acting on plants, e.g., in the way that they produce the leaves of each individual plant. There is morphic resonance in all the patterns of Nature, even in the ways crystals develop. Thinking now in terms of the cellular level, human beings have been sperm and egg, have been fertilizing eggs for many millennia, have been sperm and eggs uniting the exact same way in conception for untold millennia.

In fact many mammals are this way. So, all told, there is a rather strong habit built up, a rather strong pattern that is a field that is of this pattern that exists in the universe because of the repetition of this pattern over and over again in the universe. So all of the aspects of sperm and egg experience—for example the experience of the sperm, that is, the struggle of the sperm—has been enacted practically an infinite number of times, more than can be imagined. For this is a strong morphogenetic field in the universe, a strong morphic pattern. The point of all this is that since we resonate with things that are similar to us, and since a sperm is of a human being, then we would resonate with this pattern as we would resonate with this pattern of the egg and its experience or pattern. Likewise we would resonate with the pattern of conception itself and all that is subsumed under that, and afterwards also.

And of course all of the development of the fertilized egg and the blastocyst—the embryo and the fetus and all that—is part of a morphic pattern that is also very well established. For our species it has been continuing practically an infinite number of times, having been enacted and being currently enacted, so that our species would find that this pattern would form part of our makeup, resonating with those patterns, and would form our thinking processes and feeling processes, and would help to structure our way of viewing the world and all else.

Finally the theory of morphic resonance states that we resonate with things with which we are more alike than not alike. Since we are more like ourselves than anything else, it follows that we would resonate more with our particular experience as a sperm and egg, for example, with its unique events, than with the experiences of other humans, or of other mammals or other species for that matter (though those possibilities are not ruled out and in fact those kinds of events—trans-species sharing of experience of morphogenetic field—is actually reputed to occur at times [Grof 1976, 1980, 1985]). At any rate, it is most likely we would resonate with and pick up on the field laid down by our own experience as such by our selves as an entity, as well as to a lesser extent resonating with and contacting the way it is done "in general," or "traditionally," by the species one belongs to. This also explains what in species other than our own is called instinct . It also makes understandable such remarkable patterns of behavior shared across generations, while genetic explanations, by contrast, appear rather preposterous.

Anyway, this is another way of looking at how these events at such an early level can actually influence the way we think, feel, and see the world, and how they can determine our basic assumptions about all of this.

Mytho-Empiricism and Biology As Mythology

Finally, mythology provides clues as to the events of these times. Shoham (1990) is one in particular who has made this case. Putting forth an approach at meaning which he calls "mytho-empiricism," he writes, "Mytho-empiricism is the utilization of myths not as illustrations of our theoretical premises but as their actual empirical anchors" (p. 34). He goes on to point out that scholars of myths have always regarded myths as reliable and faithful revelations of patterns of events that occurred prior to recorded history. Acknowledging that they can reflect patterns of events that are not otherwise accessible, he makes his case that the events that these myths are most actually reflecting are those of the earliest times in one's individual (as opposed to cultural or collective) life. Thus, he writes,

Shoham (1990) qualifies his claims for the reliability of mythic projections by noting the obvious deduction that myths can vary in the degree to which they accurately project the common early experiences of the individual and that a good indicator of their reliability as regards universal patterns of early experience is the relative universality of the particular myth's appearance:

The personality theory derived from such a mytho-empirical base constructs the person as embodying two radically opposed tendencies—one the desire for fusion and the other for separation:

It also puts forth a stagelike progression (or "degression"), created by these various earliest instances of separation or splitting off. The creation of these phases through splitting is remarkably like the creation of the spectrum of consciousness by the various splittings, creating the various dualities, that Wilber (1977) describes. The major difference is that Wilber's contention is the building up of these in the Sole Eternal Moment and Shoham's in the course of one's earliest existence, Wilber's as creating the consciousness in the Moment and Shoham's as creating the personality. Shoham (1990) describes the progression:

In the chapters to follow, I will be presenting just such a progression, rather devolution, following the phases of early biological experience and correlating it both with the psychological development of the ego and personality development in general in a manner akin to Shoham's as well as to the building up of the spectrum of consciousness according to Wilber.

However, the major difference between my progression and Shoham's is that I start at conception as the first phase of separation and he starts at birth. In fact, I take Shoham's phases and place them one step back, so to speak. His birth scenario becomes what I see to be conception; his early orality phase, my phase of birth. At the third phase we begin to coincide in that both of our third phases coincide with the phase of socionormative indoctrination that reaches its peak at around the age of four. And finally our fourth stages are also identical in depicting the puberty or identity phase.

I make these differences from Shoham for compelling reasons. For one thing, what Shoham gives as an example of birth in mythology is actually much more like conception. It is so much more like conception that I feel he would also have placed it there if he had not, in following mainstream ego psychologists and outdated Freudian notions, been led to believe that neither consciousness or memory can exist from that far back. Therefore, I feel he makes this mistake only because he is operating on the basis of mainstream psychology and an outdated psychoanalysis that sees the beginnings of psychic life only at birth.

It is not surprising he makes this mistake as it is only in the more recent field of pre- and perinatal psychology that we see the beginnings of psychic life going back into the womb and, in some understandings (including my own), to before conception. But with this understanding of where the beginning truly lies, his framework, his mythically expressed ontology, becomes strikingly fitted with the biological events. In altering his framework in this way, then, the following chapters will incorporate, for additional elucidation and perspective, the mytho-empirical light he sheds.

Footnotes

1. It is especially heuristic to analyze body for, as it has been said, body is concretized mind. This is not to mean concretized Mind—in Wilber's sense—but concretized ego (in the sense of the separate self, in the sense of mind as used by Satya Sai Baba and other teachers who say that, ultimately, mind must be destroyed). Therefore, in contemplating the metaphors of the biological understanding of body, we can discern patterns and derive meanings concerning the separate self—its evolution, relationship to the whole, patterns of activity, stages of development, essence, and its experience of itself. [return to text]

PART TWO: FALLS FROM GRACE:
A DEVOLUTIONAL MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS INCORPORATING PRE- AND PERINATAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SPECTRUM/TRANSPERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

Chapter Four:
Biology As Metaphor and Mythology

by

Michael Derzak Adzema

The Stuff of the World Is Mind-Stuff

Biology As Metaphor

The Legitimacy of Cellular Memory

Mytho-Empiricism and Biology As Mythology

Footnotes

Go to Falls From Grace: Chapter Five: The First
Fall From Grace: Sperm/Egg and Conception

**Return to Falls From Grace: Chapter Three: A Foray Into Cellular/ Transpersonal Consciousness**

Return to Falls From Grace: Contents

Return to What's New

Return to Mickel Adzema's Writings

Return to Primal Spirit Home Page

PART TWO: FALLS FROM GRACE: A DEVOLUTIONAL MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS INCORPORATING PRE- AND PERINATAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SPECTRUM/TRANSPERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

Chapter Four: Biology As Metaphor and Mythology

by

Michael Derzak Adzema

The Stuff of the World Is Mind-Stuff

Biology As Metaphor

The Legitimacy of Cellular Memory

Mytho-Empiricism and Biology As Mythology

Footnotes

Go to Falls From Grace: Chapter Five: The First Fall From Grace: Sperm/Egg and Conception

Return to Falls From Grace: Chapter Three: A Foray Into Cellular/ Transpersonal Consciousness

Return to Falls From Grace: Contents

Return to What's New

Return to Mickel Adzema's Writings

Return to Primal Spirit Home Page

PART TWO: FALLS FROM GRACE:
A DEVOLUTIONAL MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS INCORPORATING PRE- AND PERINATAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SPECTRUM/TRANSPERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

Chapter Four:
Biology As Metaphor and Mythology

Go to Falls From Grace: Chapter Five: The First
Fall From Grace: Sperm/Egg and Conception

**Return to Falls From Grace: Chapter Three: A Foray Into Cellular/ Transpersonal Consciousness**