Evolutionary Metaphors

by David J Moore

  Proceeding from this question, Adam Roberts presents the problem with a great deal of clarification. Upon reflecting on the mysterious ‘thing itself’, or noumenon, his character concludes that the ‘thing is vital, not inert’ and that the ‘twenty-first century atheists peer carefully at the world around them and claim to see no evidence for God, when what they’re really peering at is the architecture of their own perceptions’ [my italics]. Indeed, what they see, Roberts writes, is simply the ‘Spars and ribs and wire-skeletons—there’s no God there…’ but, he asks with great insight, ‘… strip away the wire-skeleton, and think of the cosmos without space or time or cause and substance, and ask yourself: is it an inert quantity?’ (2016: 326–327).

  Now, what is evidenced in Roberts’ novel is an attempt to unify and explore the limits of science fiction and religious belief through the philosophic framework of Kant’s metaphysics. Through the ‘architecture of their own perceptions’ man perceives in his universe, and in himself, the limits of his own closed-system of values. Yet, what is implicit in this realisation is what Wilson calls a ‘tri-alism’; that is, an addition to our usual understanding of Cartesian dualism—mind/body, spirit/matter, and so on. Instead, what is implicit in this understanding is that, as well as a ‘contemplating mind (“I think”) looking out at alien nature’, there are two I’s; ‘one is the “I think”, and the other the “transcendental ego”.’ Of course, this relates directly to Descartes’ famous edict that Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). What Fichte and Wilson are really pointing out is that, behind the scenes of our usual perceptions, there is an ‘invisible’ ‘I’ which manifests the ‘texture’, as it were, and meanings that appear to underlie our apprehension of reality. And instead of ‘looking out at the universe from its armchair’ we need now to recognise that there are two I’s, ‘two faces, one to look out, one to look inward towards the “hidden I”, the transcendental ego’. It would not be a stretch to say that the transcendental ego is our most esoteric dimension; for how it works, of course, requires a complex array of language and concepts to untie its mysterious involvement in our perceptions.

  In an amended Epilogue to The New Existentialism (1966), Wilson provides some insights into what he calls his ‘basic metaphysic’, and this offers a valuable insight that may further our investigation into anomalous phenomena. As the UFO, according to Vallée, operates on the divide between dream and our ‘here and now’ reality—between our psychological and the material worlds—the transcendental ego too, in some odd way, may operate at a deeper level than we ordinarily understand. Indeed, one could say that the transcendental ego is a sort of ‘reality structurer’. Now by forwarding a basic ‘doctrine of the will’ that aims to uncover the ‘unconscious layers of will and intention, of which you were previously not aware’, it is significant that Wilson points out that the deeper layers of our intentionality awaken in mystical experiences. For in these experiences we lose our general sense of alienation—moreover, an alienation that is ‘due to lack of contact with one’s intentional layers’. Referring to this as our ‘deep intentionality’ what Wilson is really presenting here is his ‘basic metaphysic’—or cosmology—that enables us, like Roberts’ protagonist, to see the universe not as an inert quantity, but instead as an active quality—constituting as well as sculpted by—the transcendental ego.

  Philip K. Dick may have envisioned this when he posed the ‘Zebra’ hypothesis which posits the idea of a God that disguises himself as the environment. Similarly, in his essay ‘If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others’ he asks a similar question: if God ‘wears’ our universe like so many garments in a wardrobe, how do we know when this universe is being worn by this overtly style-conscious God? Now, it is not difficult to switch this idea around and say: what inhabits our universe is our ‘deep intentionality’ which, through us, ‘wears’ our perceptions of our world without us being aware of its presence. This is basically Fichte’s challenge to Kant’s notion of the noumenon. In fact, the transcendental ego is the part of us that bounds our consciousness of the thing itself. It does so by providing a ‘livable reality’ rather than an overwhelming influx of information—in short, it blinkers us in interest of our own practical survival. Man, bound by the phenomenal world, therefore has no direct access to the metaphysical realities that lie behind his categories—his structures and frameworks of perception—that en-frames human consciousness. That is, unless the intentional energies are fired up enough to access these deeper realms of the psyche, these deeper levels of intentionality.

  Similarly to Philip K. Dick’s ‘Zebra’ and Adam Roberts’ ‘active noumenon’, Madame Blavatsky in her enormous book, The Secret Doctrine (1888), states that the ‘noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle’ (2012: 20). Now, whether the UFO manifests as an aspect of the noumenon becoming phenomenon, it is almost impossible to say. But, if we begin to understand the phenomenon on its own bizarre terms, we can see how it effectively subverts our ordinary categories and challenges our Aristotelian either/or sensibilities by posing a both/and anomalous ‘event’.

  Here one may turn to Carl Jung’s curious dream of October 1958—briefly discussed in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)—in which he saw ‘lens-shaped metallic gleaming disks’, which he identified as two typical UFOs that proceeded to fly directly towards him as he was standing alongside his lake in Bollingen. As they briefly hovered about his person they quickly flew off, leaving him alone for a short period until another UFO appeared; again this was lens-like but this time it had an extension of a sort of ‘magic lantern’. As it was directing its attention towards him he suddenly awoke with the lingering thought that, ‘We always think that U.F.O.s are projections of ours. Now it turns out that we are their projections. I am projected by the magic lantern as CG Jung. But who manipulates the apparatus?’ [my italics] (1995: 355). Perhaps it was the transcendental ego, that deep intentional part of our being that showed itself to Jung in a symbolic dream?

  Phenomenologically Jung’s dream leaves us with much to think about. For Jung is essentially passive in this dream; indeed, he is projected by the UFO itself. His very existence is bestowed by these lens-like disks, equipped as they are with a sort of projection unit in the form of a magic lantern. Like Blavatsky’s noumenon becoming the phenomenon, Jung is projected by the unknown incursion of anomalous flying ‘observers’, as it were. Now, as this was Jung’s dream we can ask the inside-out question—which relates well to dream logic—by seeing if Jung’s own ‘dream identity’—his self as experienced in the dream—is indeed a product of an aspect of his higher-self. In other words, one might ask what aspect of Jung projected the dream in the first place?

  The new existentialism lays important emphasis on the essential hierarchical nature of consciousness; lower levels of consciousness become increasingly diffuse, disintegrated, whereas higher forms of consciousness—such as the mystical experience or the ‘peak experience’—become synthesised and integrated into the greater whole of our being.

  At this point it will benefit us to step back and once again ask the fundamental existential questions. Indeed, questions such as: Who am I? What is the meaning of existence? become impossible to answer in our ordinary states of consciousness because, in some sense, they are at the very substratum of our being. In other words, these questions are in a sense already answered for at a level below the iceberg of ordinary consciousness; they are what propel us into being in the first place—and the very reason for something rather than nothing at all. This ‘deep intentionality’ is effectively the Life Force.

  Now, as we increase our consciousness we also include these deeper layers into our being; we integrate ourselves more fully and these answers become more self-evident. In fact, we might lose our general sense of alienation altogether—this, of course, being the fundamental insight of the mystical experience, or gnosis (mea
ning knowledge): all is one; our being and the universe are ultimately knowable and, moreover, inseparable. ‘When you awake,’ writes Wilson, ‘your top layers come to life first; i.e. are suffused with conscious energy, like blood flowing in the veins’ but when these deeper layers of you also integrate into your ‘top layers’ of ordinary consciousness, there comes bubbling up the ‘deep intentionality’ which is, for all intents and purposes, the ‘reality structurer’ as well as a source of our vital energies (1995).

  Indeed, as we are not normally aware of these profound resources of energy they—rather like Jung’s dream UFO—effectively project our very being; they are, as it were, the foundational dynamism that maintains and energises our ‘architectures of perception’. Just as Roberts points out the ‘dynamic’ quality of Kant’s noumenon, so it is with Jung’s twoway projecting UFO; both, in a sense, are representative of the deeper levels of consciousness—that level of what Wilson calls ‘deep intentionality’. It is this realisation implicit in the ‘new existentialism’ that constitutes Wilson’s essential cosmology, and furthermore it helps us illuminate the perceptual and consciousness-changing experiences associated with the UFO phenomenon more generally.

  To extend these insights further it is worth turning again to the work of Carl Jung whose ‘active imagination’ and ‘enantiodromia’ may provide us with further insights into the nature of anomalous phenomena. Firstly, the basic definition of the enantiodromia is the tendency for things to turn into their opposites; a sort of governing principle that ensures a general balance of opposites. And yet, to see the UFO phenomena merely as a sort of psychic compensatory mechanism is too reductive—but, in spite of that, its very actions—its theatrical and absurdist performance—may be an initiation of sorts. That is, representative of a challenge that is to be overcome—a kōan designed to integrate a deeper understanding into the nature of reality, and particularly consciousness’ role in the making of that reality.

  If such phenomenon emerges out of a sort of deep wellspring of intentionality, that is not to say they are mere compensatory mechanisms acting on a sort of ‘automatic-response’ level. In other words, they are not the equivalent of an unconscious ‘reflex-arc’ that merely reacts to external conditions without any will of their own. In fact, there is the difficult realisation that these entities, which accompany either dream visions or waking experiences, are endowed with a degree of independence and autonomy—and, more disturbingly perhaps, a degree of consciousness which appears to be in advance of our own. This is where it becomes difficult to differentiate between projection and independent ‘realities’, for these may be impressions rather than realities as such. Or impressions of a reality beyond what we ordinarily know. Furthermore, these very super-conscious abilities that the UFO entities exhibit may be precisely those same abilities which are presently dormant—untapped—in the human psyche.

  Of course, there are many presuppositions about how the universe works, and in what dimensions conscious beings can exist. Spiritualism, of course, posits the notion of alternate dimensions and realms in which independent, conscious entities exist. This is present in the notion of an afterlife; another world or space in which consciousness voyages after the death of the physical body. Certainly, it becomes clear in UFO literature that these denizens occupy an in-between state; rather, they are like Blavatsky’s noumenon becoming phenomenon. Whatever they are, they clearly can switch between physical and dream realities at will; and, to confound things further, they obfuscate themselves from everyday believability by leaving behind a trail of absurdity and illogic, thus deliberately subverting what we know as a consensus—or categorical—reality.

  In this sense, enantiodromia is one of the typical methods of the trickster in folklore. It is the sheer mercurialness of the phenomenon which demands a psychological, as well as phenomenological, approach to unveil both its methods (of unveiling itself) and its meaning and purpose (the reason for its unveiling). We shall return to the concept of enantiodromia. But first, we must clearly understand how Jung’s notion of active imagination ties in with Wilson’s emphasis on the importance of intentionality.

  Metaphors and Meta-Logic

  The UFO phenomena—like a Zen kōan or an esoteric secret—may yield to our comprehension but remain fundamentally inexpressible. There is a sense that, to communicate certain meanings, one must turn to symbol and to theatrics, even to dream logic and altered states of consciousness. This is fundamentally the reason why all the fields correspond or cross-fertilise each other; each remains at the periphery of our comprehension and expression. Indeed, there is a sense of an implicit truth that lies beyond the veil of what is apparent. Revelations which often accompany the UFO, the kōan and the esoteric insight are often grasped on the threshold of both our rational mind and imaginative faculties; it is, therefore, at man’s most integrated in which his higher faculties can grasp extraordinary—or supernatural—logic. This is what Wilson meant by achieving a ‘bird’seye view’.

  In a previous essay, I wrote: ‘Esotericism or the “occult” can perhaps be summarised by this notion of transmuting the conceptually obscured, or hidden nature of reality, into everyday perception. And to do this, of course, is to increase the relationality of consciousness’ (Stanley; 2017: 111). This ‘step-over’ from the super-conscious mind of greater meanings into our conscious understanding is the evolution of consciousness. When it happens there is a sense of new relationships between things that previously seemed infinitely and inexplicably separated. Enantiodromia—when things become their opposite—as seen from a ‘bird’s-eye view’ would be perceived for what it is: the ‘return of the repressed’; for something within consciousness is not being addressed because it is neither sensed nor perceived by the lower levels of consciousness. Again, Wilson’s statement that ‘if the flame of consciousness is low, a symbol has no power to evoke reality’ becomes a key to our understanding this concept (1980: 112).

  The UFO—existing in the difficult in-between hinterlands of respectability and reason—appears to be such a symbol itself. Says Jacques Vallée, ‘[if] you strive to convey a truth that lies beyond the semantic level made possible by your audience’s language, you must construct apparent contradictions in terms of ordinary meaning’ (2014: 27). Indeed, if the UFO is a symbol that intends—assuming it has its own raison d’être—to bypass most respectable institutions—and, as Vallée goes on to state, to nevertheless ‘implant deep within society far-reaching doubts concerning its basic philosophical tenets’—it must turn itself inside out; that is, by generating its own sense of mystery. Vallée continues, ‘it would have to project an image just beyond the belief structure of the target society.’ This is what he calls the UFO’s ‘meta-logic’; precisely the same sort of logic that I have briefly outlined above with Jung’s enantiodromia.

  Furthermore, there is the metaphorical and analogical nature of the UFO phenomena that appears to generate around it. There is a proliferation of theories, each closely related to the other. Patrick Harpur identifies these as effectively misreading spatial metaphors, in which he goes on to list the analogous connections: ‘UFOs come from beyond, inside, outside, next to, above, below, within, etc.’ Comparing it to crop circle theory, he extrapolates the analogous connections further: ‘extraterrestrial theory: unconscious projection theory :: outer space: inner space :: physical : mental.... extraterrestrial theory: “earth energy” theory :: above: below :: material : immaterial’ (2003: 169). One only needs to look at the title of Stan Gooch’s excellent book, Creatures from Inner Space (1984), for an explicit example of Harpur’s observation.

  The dramatic and unusual experience of abduction phenomenon as it is reported by many abductees complicates the issue further. As I have mentioned previously, this is one of the subcategories of ufology, and has increasingly dominated the field over sightings of the ‘craft’ themselves. Indeed, the abduction scenarios often have an intensely dreamlike and apparently non-physical dimension, which further frustra
tes these spatial and physical-mental juxtapositions. Of course, there is the sense that the UFO and its occupants are interdimensional travellers, utterly at odds with our customs as well as our fundamental experience of time and meaning. Rather like when anthropologists breaching the isolation of ancient tribes, the student—by the very act of integration—affects what it is he wants to observe; rather, it becomes a perceptual as well as cross-cultural mirage of information—in which both sides are quickly confused and misunderstood. To each party the rituals of the other are inevitably misinterpreted—or, indeed, remain altogether incomprehensible. The cultural bridging may take a long time, and even then, the communications may be tenuous and trivial until greater integration is achieved.

  EM Forster in his 1924 novel A Passage to India depicts a poignant example of this problem when he compares the Englishmen meeting with a group of Hindus, of whom one is requested to sing but, in apparently ignoring the request, continues on with the conversation while intermittently taking sips of tea. As the occasion draws to a close, he suddenly bursts out, ‘I may sing now,’ and the novel continues:

  His thin voice rose, and gave out one sound after another. At times there seemed rhythm, at times there was the illusion of a Western melody. But the ear, baffled repeatedly, soon lost any clue, and wandered in a maze of noises, none harsh or unpleasant, none intelligible. It was the song of an unknown bird. Only the servants understood it… The sounds continued and ceased after a few moments as casually as they had begun—apparently half through a bar, and upon the subdominant.11

  Of course, this is a basic difference in artistic form, but nevertheless it brings home an important point. Commenting upon this scene the philosopher William Barrett notes that the Westerner may find the ‘Oriental music “meaningless”’, however, ‘the Oriental might very well reply that this is the meaninglessness of nature itself which goes on endlessly without beginning, middle, or end’ (1990: 55). Again, the misunderstanding is a philosophical, ontological and even an epistemological one that relates to our understanding of spatial metaphors in regard to time and its processes.