HOLOGRAPHIC HEALING

What people mean by consciousness is varied. Some mean no more than awake or aware, (conscious), as opposed to asleep or unaware, (unconscious). Some see it as the essence of self-awareness, (i.e. humans have consciousness, and animals don’t). But this particular definition is very shallow. It short changes the intricacy and depth of consciousness and does not account for the many consciousness phenomena that characterize the human condition and reality in general. The behaviorist school of psychology embraces this definition and in doing so relegates the human to a simple stimulus-response machine-like organism.

Freud's notion of consciousness is much more than this. Basically he established three elements or organizations of consciousness: the ego, the superego and the id. This division involved a sense and definition of self, (the ego), and a dark and complex morass of base sexual and other desires and structures, (the id), that vies with a “conscience” or finer, higher self, (the superego), to control and shape the ego, the id and behavior. Thus, he moved beyond the notion of consciousness as only self-awareness (the ego) and embraced levels of consciousness of which we are unaware (the sub- conscious) and which determine our responses and behavior as much or more so than our aware mind (the Id and the Superego) does.

This was a remarkable insight for the time and circumstances in which it was formulated.  Freud presented his theories about consciousness in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  This was at a time when the mechanistic (Newtonian) view of reality was virtually unchallenged. There was no room in science for something as unsubstantial and unpredictable as consciousness phenomena and he was rewarded with ridicule for his theories.  In my opinion he was defining a new scientific paradigm for working with humans. However, he lived and operated in a sexually repressed time and culture and these elements possibly were foremost in his studies of his clients.

Although limited by these considerations, Freud's notions about the nature of consciousness implied that it was far more than was immediately apparent on the surface. His identification of subconscious or hidden consciousness, which controls our behavior, opened the doorway to a much deeper understanding of the human condition, mental illnesses and our actions. However classical science was not ready to admit consciousness into its body and so Freud was not really considered a scientist nor his work scientific. He was years ahead of his time.  Even today those interested in studying consciousness phenomena are at best barely tolerated and most often ridiculed in classic science.

Carl Jung expanded this definition of consciousness beyond Freud's to include a transpersonal component, the collective consciousness that defines a common pool of consciousness from which all people draw. This collective consciousness transcends culture and presents archetypal images or principles that influence people from any and all locations, times and races.

Jung also defined many dynamics or structures of consciousness such as the complexes that form about certain structures. Standing on Freud's shoulders, his insights opened the door to much current knowledge and began to bridge the gap between science and spiritual teachings. Both Freud and Jung were ahead of their time and defined the basis for the broader definitions of consciousness that are emerging currently to define consciousness science.

Until recently, many if not most, neurologists and neuro-biologists have considered consciousness to be the product of neural activity, although that particular notion is now coming under attack both from within and outside the profession. Consciousness was seen as nothing more than the result of neural activity in the brain. Recently, however, it has been suggested that neural activity may instead be the result of deeper consciousness structures and activities.

For some, the notion of consciousness is still broader and consciousness is not limited to being an exclusively human characteristic. For example, consider the concept of Gaia, in which the entire planet is seen to be a living and conscious entity. Views from the cutting edges of physics, particularly quantum theory, go even further and imply that consciousness may be one of the fundamental forces or principles of nature, a building block of reality and the universe itself.

All particles in the universe seem to display consciousness characteristics as observed, for example, by David Bohm in his work with plasmas. Other theoretical physicists such as Amit Goswami go so far as to suggest that the universe is a conscious self-creating entity with matter and reality forming out of more fundamental levels of consciousness.  H.P. Stapp’s current directions in theoretical physics are in exploring the nature of consciousness and its relationship to matter.

We have come to understand and define consciousness in this broader context, consistent with shamanic beliefs and also with our scientific understanding, which echo the notions coming from the advanced theoretical physicists such as Bohm, Stapp and Goswami.  In the shamanic paradigm all things are understood to have a beingness or consciousness: animals, plants, insects, rivers, even rocks and grains of sand, and the atoms and subatomic particles that form them. The entire planet, the sun and moon and stars, the entire universe are conscious entities. It exists in all things and at all levels of being and organization. There is nowhere or nothing in which consciousness is not involved. This is the concept for consciousness we accept and explore in this book.

To be true, this implies two possibilities, or in scientific terms suggests two hypotheses: Before going on to these the reader should note that many portions of this Part 4 of the book are speculative. They are hypotheses I have formed based on my own explorations of consciousness. They are mixed in with known data and are usually extrapolations, interpolations or speculations based on that data and my experiences, or they are a blending of shamanic and scientific notions. I have attempted to differentiate where I am offering these hypotheses or notions, and cited the sources of the more accepted data. The following are two of my base hypotheses about consciousness.

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