Where Time Turns into Space

How far is a Second?

-Or-

Whole work art,

in which time

turns into space.

      If superior humans are ever to walk this earth, we need to form new ways of knowing, new ways of learning.  Gestalt, whole work art universities are needed which entrain consciousness on an artistic, symbolic, mystical holism.  What can save us now is only a complete synthesis of ecology and religion, placing cooperation over competition, over the discourse of division and hate.  There will be no deus ex machina, and the future of our earth is our responsibility.  Only complete sublimation of our destructive tendencies and a “revaluation of all values” can change our current direction.

       There may be other forms of consciousness which we can use to shape our future to the greater benefit of all humanity.  To reach an understanding of what these forms could be, requires an understanding of how our mind currently creates the world we see.  What are the limits of our perspective, and can it be expanded?

      The writings of Julian Jaynes suggest that our consciousness has been through changes in the past.  Bicameral man, Jaynes suggests, exhibited a previous form of mentation which was vastly different from our own.  His theory suggests that consciousness itself can perform major evolutionary leaps, producing new humans which see the world in an entirely different way.

          The theories which PD Ouspensky developed about 2D, 3D and 4D modes of perception elucidate the theories of Julian Jaynes.  In combining these two theories, a more complete theory of consciousness emerges. 

          It is widely believed that preliterate people with oral tradition had excellent memory for preserving their myths.  They are documented to have flawlessly retained consistency and accuracy in the preservation of their oral cultural heritage.  PD Ouspensky states that animals lower than humans, such as dogs, exist in a two dimensional mode of perception.  In fact, humans see in 2D as well, but we extract a 3D perspective out of that vision.  In the book Tertium Organum, Ouspensky states that 2D perceivers experience every event as a new separate memorable event, due to the restrictions of their perception by the 2D mode.  I believe these 2D perceivers would have improved memory, which would explain the amazing feats of memory which are reputed to have been demonstrated by ancient people.  Francis Yates, in The Art of Memory, explains techniques used by people in the middle ages and ancient times, to improve their memories to flawless levels.  It may be possible to exist in a dual 2D/3D state to benefit from the perceptual advantages of each “operating system.”  Ouspensky states that conceptions, ideas, are what allow us to interpret the world around us in three dimensions.  2D perceivers do not have the perception of three dimensionality, because they do not have the conception of such in their minds.  The idea that objects have 3 dimensions, combined with synesthetic cues, such as touching 3d blocks as a child, helps a child learn the visual cues which correspond to three dimensionality.  3D perceivers have the tool of a “concept” such as “chair.”  This allows them to generalize and understand a larger piece of their reality.  This generalization would likely have a detrimental effect on memory. 

          One of the largest questions, in my mind, is, can you have language without consciousness?  And the answer, I believe, is that 2D perceivers can have spoken language without having what we experience as modern consciousness.  I believe the line is drawn between bicameral and modern people with the advent of the written word.  The written word creates the “mind space” to conceptualize "concepts" and especially certain concepts, such as dimensionality. This is what creates a person who can make the jump from 2D to 3D mental processes.

          A war between bicameral(2D) people, and modern consciousness(3D) people, occurred when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs or, perhaps to a lesser extent, the English settlers conquering the American Indians.  It is clear what happens when these two types of people clash.   Or, rather than a direct clash, you simply have assimilation.  Bringing religion to the natives always entailed bringing reading and writing, too.  In several generations, there are no more Bicamerals, just more modern people, with a different color skin.

          It is likely that Bicameral consciousness has other benefits as well as superhuman memory.  Jaynes stated he could “make”  a bicameral person, given the right environment.  I think we should.  A “Bicameral College” could give us a special sect of people with unique abilities.  It would take a great leap of faith, because it would include not teaching, from a young age, the written word.  Marshall McLuhan was an early researcher of media and its effect on our perception. McLuhan propagated the concept that the way you receive intellectual input is as important to the end result as the input itself, or, “the medium is the message.”  He stated the modern wireless age is changing how we think. 

          Leonard Shlain suggests, in his book, The Alphabet and the Goddess, that the advent of literacy changed people, making them more aggressive and violent.  As well as a reduction of the violent tendencies, a Bicameral school would produce poetic minds.  A vast curriculum of mythopoetic literature could be the canon of such a school.  These students could employ the concepts of Joseph Chilton Pearce, while saturating in the poetry of Blake, Shakespeare.

      Robert Graves laments that there is no longer any classical mythological canon which is taught at universities or even an unofficial group of books which everyone is assured to have read.  My concern is that the Bicameral mind uses large mythopoetic associations to communicate in synergy, simultaneous, emergent, iconic thought.  If Julian Jaynes' bicameral mind still exists, underneath our own, we have prevented access to it by not giving it the raw data en mass which it requires to formulate its poetic expulsions.  There is not a common mythosphere in which common poetic schemes can emerge.  Everyone is living in their own separate mythopoetic world. 

The few people who do begin to create a safe womblike mythosphere begin to experience the other attributes of true mythopoetic genesis.  Namely; vestigial precognizance, high levels of synchronicity, the ability to see the fabric of an emergent reality coming into being.  Jung experienced high levels of synchronicity due to the common mythospere he created with his colleagues and patients.  The attempt to use the subconscious as a creative source was the driving force in the creation of the art form Surrealism.  Surrealists use art, poems, games, and other techniques to tap their inner emergent creativity.  In the Surrealist Manifesto, by Andre Breton, he discusses how he accessed his “subconscious” through the use of surrealist techniques.  I suggest that the Freudian subconscious is simply latent 2D or Bicameral mentality.  Mastery of our subconscious is generally agreed upon as a good idea.  But what about 4D? What about our superconscious? 

      Having grown up with Madeline L' Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, I am pleased to use concepts which I first learned in her work as a child, here, in my philosophical musings.  Later, I enjoyed watching The Last Mimsy with my younger brothers, and was pleased to see the same philosophical concepts.  Both of these stories actually draw from real theories pertaining to the fourth dimension.  The concept of a Tesseract, or of walking through walls, in Wrinkle, or the ability to see and manipulate higher dimensional space, in Mimsy, are all good examples of the theoretic impact of being able to observe and interact with higher dimensions.  It is important in art to create the framework which younger generations conceptualize advanced ideas.  In fact, the art which children are exposed to as a child has a permanent effect on a child's creativity, or lack thereof.  It is a scary thought that the book Momo, by Michael Ende, is not even available in America.  Ende wrote The Neverending Story and was a prominent leader in Theosophy.  His ideas are the antipathy of materialism.  It is fascinating that you cannot buy his second most popular book, Momo, in this country.  There is something more important than money at stake here.  It is the minds of children.  Closed minded children turn into closed minded adults, people who can't believe that there is more to reality than what they see.

      When Philip K Dick wrote Valis, he wrote the entire book in third person, referring to himself as “Horselover Fat,” in doing so, he reasoned that the third person narrative gave him “much needed objectivity.”  PKD may have done this to create a level of detachment towards otherwise painful memories.  Or, his underlying pseudo, or full-blown schizophrenic tendencies may have dictated this writing style.  I suspect creating a sense of detachment, internally, can create an “internal observer” which can assist in debunking internal irrationalities.  Most people react emotionally to their environment, then, afterwards, justify their actions by applying a logical narrative.  This cogio-rationalization is the antipathy of good sense.  If instead you segment an internal “personalitiy” into an objective internal observer, you can use logic to self-modify and sublimate irrational and emotionally driven behaviors.

      In the work of Carlos Casteneda, this third person detachment was carried even further, ultimately to the betterment in his many novels.  I believe that at best, the character Don Juan was loosely based on a real person.  Most likely this man was neither as perfect as Casteneda mythologized him to be, or as knowledgeable.  At worst, for readers who demand “truth,” Don Juan was an internal projection of Castenedas own consciousness, a breakaway logic loop, an internal guide that all of us need to develop.  Casteneda formed a mystic system which holds distinct similarities to that of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff.  Casteneda made a whole mythological world where he could come to terms with his own (excellent) philosophical musings and apply the teachings in sociological terms.  In other words, Casteneda created a world where characters could act out the reality of living out a specific a mystical system.  The resulting books contain as much “truth” as you can get out of them, and can be valuable tools for forming your own mythosphere. 

      The idea of higher dimensions of space is not controversial among scientists.  At the last time I read up on it, string theorists were considering it practicable to use eleven dimensions of space to conceptualize the phenomena we observe, such as gravity and electromagnetism. 

      The scientific method encourages the gathering of data, but how do you gather data when you doubt even what you see?  It is important not to assume what you see in your 3D perception mode is real.  Such an assumption could prevent you from making the leap into 4D perception, superconsciousness.  In other words, rather than observing phenomena and trying to form conclusions from my data, I would like to start with the quirks of perception itself.  The reason for this reversal of any scientific method is due to the effect our preconceived notions on the topic at hand.  Not only are these preconceived notions aspects of “rational” thought, they are also hard wired into our language itself and perception itself. 

      Many difficulties present when assuming that perception is reality.  An excellent book which discusses the shortcomings and misconceptions which arise in regards to consciousness is The User Illusion, by Tor Norretranders.  Norretranders book has recent scientific studies which shine a distinct light on exactly what consciousness is not.  For a more mystical take on perception, Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception is a good start.  Entertain the possibility, at least, that the world is not as you perceive it. 

      The User Illusion in a nutshell is this:  Everything you observe is translated before you perceive it, everything is processed, extrapolated, changed, by a preprogrammed retinue which is a function of your brain.  What you observe is, in a very real sense, not reality itself; it is an interpretation.  This effect is commonly demonstrated by the effect which optical illusions have on the perception.  The preprogrammed interpretation can be tricked into seeing movement where there isn't any, as well as many other deceptions. 

      It is a common belief among psychologists that depth perception is a learned behavior which occurs during childhood.  Depth perception, for the purposes of this essay will be defined as the ability to conceptualize and therefore perceive three dimensions visually.  People who are given eyesight later in life, by medical intervention, often complain that they do not have depth perception and literally find seeing to be mentally exhausting.

      The system which I use to explain the fourth perpendicular, or fourth dimension, to myself and others, is that of Ouspensky.  Ouspensky was a mathematician, mystic, and is commonly remembered as a follower of the teachings of Gurdjieff.

      Gurdjieff came from the era of “whole work art,” which was a concept which Richard Wagner designed.  Whole work art, by design, enchants all the senses at once, and can have the effect of “stopping time.”  When all sense organs are focused on the same event, senses blur and can create euphoric synesthetic experiences.  Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan teachings are clearly Gurdjieff without Gurdjieff.  One of Gurdjieffs teachings was to live above the realm of the accidental.  This can easily be translated to Castaneda's concept, “Intentionality.”  Gurdjieffs teachings were cast upon great doubt when he himself had an automobile accident which left him in a coma.  Castaneda wisely used different terminology to deploy the same teachings.  By using a third person concept, and relying on the teachings of Don Juan, Castaneda could claim ignorance to his own work while having the master (Don Juan) stay incorruptibly perfect. 

       This is an obtuse way of letting the story speak for itself, or, parallels the concept “anything that can be believed is truth.”  Nevertheless, it is an interesting subterfuge, makes for a great story, and may actually be a highly intelligent attempt to bypass modern man's incipient cogio-rationalizations.  He simply says, this is the truth; take it or leave it.

      Synesthesia is the best perceptional tool that we can use to perceive fourth dimensional phenomena.  Wagner, in his opera Parsifal, states that inside the Grail castle, “Time turns into space.”  This is the effect, according to Ouspensky, of entering a higher perceptional level.  Ouspensky states that movement, which can only take place in time, becomes an aspect of a greater dimension of space.  Higher perceivers, according to Ouspensky, “extract more dimensions out of time.”

          Gurdjieff was known during his era as a mystic and dance instuctor.  He designed a dances and musical scores which were designed to place his students in a mystical state of being. Gurdjieff taught a complex mystical system which students referred to as “The Work.”  He wrote several books and traveled extensively. Olgivanna Hizenburg, a prominent student of Gurdjieff in Russia, was instructed to leave for America and attempt to spread her master’s teachings. In America, Olgivanna married architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  Olgivanna used her husband’s fame and connections to network and build a group of students, to whom she could pass on Gurdjieffs teachings.  Interestingly, one of the people who visited Olgivanna and Wright was Buckminster Fuller. 

          Buckminster Fuller was known for his concept of “spaceship earth,” and well remembered for his dome structures.  He was a famous architect, inventor and “futurist.”  Among many inventions in sustainable architecture and engineering were state-of-the-art discoveries in geometric load bearing techniques.  Buckminster Fuller, with the help of his students, came up with the idea of Tensegrity structures, and called one of his favorite design philosophies “4D.”  I see Fullers life as a perfect example of “whole work art.”

          Castaneda, in his later work, came up with a series of physical exercises which are similar to yogic or meditative techniques.  Castaneda called these exercises “Tensegrity.” and suggested they would help people “see.” “Seeing,” I believe, is a euphemism for perceiving higher reality.

          Ouspensky, in his work, has a diagram of what a 4D circle would look like.  Below I have pictures of crop circles which look exactly the same, and may be diagrams of 4D structures, ironically enough, on a 2D canvas! Could “aliens” be four dimensional creatures, and are the crop circles intended to give us a diagram of their perspective?  Or is it a group of prankster Ouspensky followers sneaking out in the middle of the night and making intricate and massive crop diagrams?  I don't know about you, but as interesting as I find Ouspensky's ideas, I sure wouldn't waste any time mashing his ideas into corn mazes. 

A fourth dimensional cube is called a hypercube, which is what was sent back in time in the movie The Last Mimsy.  A hypercube could appear to be a regular cube to a 3D perceiver, in the same way that when a 3D object, when intersecting a 2D plane, can create a 2D section.  The famous surrealist Salvador Dali painted Jesus crucified on a hypercube.

Many people have trouble conceptualizing the fourth dimension in a practical, physical way.  One of the best ways to experience and improve your perception of 3D is to play with a Rubik's cube.  There are working models of 4D Rubik's hypercubes online, therefore it is possible for humans to practice movement in four dimensions.  We do not experience 4D in the world around us, as it is believed that our world is three dimensional.  It is a common misconception that the fourth dimension is time.  Castaneda's writings discuss exercises which were used to induce non-ordinary experiences in perspective, and in linearity of perception (in time.) 

          The fourth dimension may be a dimension of intention, pure will.   Specifically interesting in such an imaginal realm are the implications on the concept of morality.

Drawing from the writings of Philip Dick, I believe that the human soul may be a part of larger “4D bodies” consisting of an unknown amount of separate people living simultaneously, outside of the concept of time. Perhaps all people are part of one large 4D collective soul.  PKD discusses in his Exegesis his feeling that he was two people living two lives, one in his era and another in biblical times, as a persecuted Christian.  Dick uses the novel Ubik to explore the concept of forms and the effect of will on reality.  I believe PKD was trying desperately in his novels and his Exegesis to explain his real fourth dimensional mystical experiences. 

Dick enjoyed toying with the concept of reality and stated famously; “I like to build universes which do fall apart.”  When Jesus taught that you will be judged on your internal sins, I believe he was setting the stage for the moral tenets future state of being in which reality itself is a projection of personal will.  In Arthur Schopenhauer's teachings, the concept of “world as will and idea,” a true 4D philosophy is further fleshed out.  Joseph Chilton Pearce in his novel Crack in the Cosmic Egg and Michael Talbot in Holographic Universe, expound scientific theories which suggest our internal state is a reflection the world around us.  The concept “as above, so below,” may have been a way of saying the universe is a hologram, before the term existed.

In a world which is a result of your inner will, flawlessness of will would be required.  The thought “I wish he were dead” would be as dangerous as killing a man yourself.  I believe the Earth may be a “jail” for “souls” who haven't yet mastered flawlessness of will.  Living in a reality in which your thoughts manifest as pure will requires a flawless morality.  Any hidden negativity or judgment toward your fellow men could cause injury or pain to them.  Living under the morality of will also require you to “conquer the monsters of the id.” This monster of the id may be the same concept which is discussed in theosophical terminology as “the dweller in the threshold,” or “the guardian of the threshold.”  

In fictional terms, the movie Sphere, by Michael Crichton, and the 1956 Science fiction movie The Forbidden Planet, a device is present which gives the power to materialize the subconscious desires on a material level.

In Forbidden Planet, the story takes place remote world, and in Sphere the drama takes place deep under the sea.  This resonates well with the “dweller in the threshold” concept, as he is only reached in deep contemplation of the inner recesses of man.  The philosophy of Thelema, which was developed by Aleister Crowley, may be based on an awareness of these same concepts.

William Blake told the story of Job to explain the concept of being crucified by one’s own morality.  Blake stated “one law for the lion and the ox is oppression.”  I believe this concept speaks to the inability to judge a 4D thinker by 3D morality. 

          The concept of an item which solidifies thought into reality is often associated with a device, often a fourth dimensional concept such as a hypercube, or tesseract.  Perhaps the Kabba in Mecca is one of these devices, the “World Hypercube.”  

          The Rose Cross of the Rosicrucian’s is an unfolded cube, and Lon Milo DuQuette explains that the Rosy Cross has an infinitesimal point on its center; “the ancients symbolized the point as a white cubic stone which contains within itself the potential of all creation.”  DuQuette goes on to explain that the three dimensions of the cube, seven position of the cube, (center plus the six sides) and twelve edges add up to twenty two, which relates directly to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet and correspond the number of cards in the Cabbalistic Tarot.  

In The Carnelian Cube, a science fiction novel written in 1948, the main character finds a small carnelian gemstone cube in an archaeological dig.  The cube is attributed to be the once-property of Apollonian, and has the magical property of transporting its user to a parallel reality which is a projection of such users will.  The cube is used by placing it under one's pillow, causing your dream to become a real world.  The furtherance of plot consists of the main character entering these unpleasant new realities, which are projections of his flawed intentions and desires.  This cube has the power, like Michael Chrichton’s Sphere, to generate a new reality.  The Carnelian Cube is an excellent example of this important meme.

According to Manly P Hall, in The Secret Teachings of the Ages, “The solar system was organized by forces operating inward from the great ring of the Saturnian sphere, and since the beginning of all things were under the control of Saturn, the most reasonable inference is that the first forms of worship were dedicated to him and his peculiar symbol, the stone.“ 

The Monolith from 2001, A Space Odyssey may also be somehow related to this Saturnian concept.  According to Jay Weidner, Stanley Kubrick originally intended to have the large second obelisk/monolith located on a moon of Saturn, rather than Jupiter.

The Osiris-Set-Isis myth has Osiris, (Saturn) being overthrown by Set, (Jupiter) in a fashion repeated by many ancient myths.  The Roman philosopher Varro believed that Yahweh of the Jews was the same as their concept of Jupiter, Jove being the highest god of the roman Pantheon.  Blavatsky clarifies this concept by stating, outright, that Saturn is Yahweh, the Father and Jupiter is “the Sun, the risen and glorious Savior.”   This is the myth which Jesus is referring to when he states, “I and the father are one.”  This was the ancient apotheosis of the mystery religions, of which Jesus and Apollonious were high initiates.   

          The Gnostic concept of a Demiurgic or Archontic force may parallel or relate to the Dweller in the Threshold concept, and may also have been associated with early Christian Gnostics with Saturn. 

          Occultist Aleister Crowley wrote several essays about Yoga called Yoga for Yahoos and Yoga for Yellowbellies.  Crowley defined Yoga as Union, and associated the practice of Yoga with creating a non-dual state.  Says Crowley of the Yogic state dhyana: “Duality in any form is abolished.  The idea of time involves that of two consecutive things, that of space two non-coincident things, that of causality two connected things.”  I believe the fourth perpendicular will be found in an compassionate, egoless state, a oneness beyond duality, a morality beyond morality, in short; a place where time turns into space.

               

Terminology:

Synchronicity - The experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner.

Synchromysticism - The drawing of connections in modern culture (movies, music lyrics, historical happenings and esoteric knowledge); and finding connections that could be coming from the collective unconscious mind; and finding connections between occult knowledge (i.e. esoteric fraternities, cults and secret rituals, politics and mass media. 

Synesthesia - a neurologic condition in which a stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Bicameral Mind Theory - A state of consciousness which predates our own, consisting of the two hemispheres of the brain having a kind of “master-slave” relationship, one “speaking” in the form of auditory hallucination, and the other “obeying.”  Julian Jaynes, the creator of this theory, suggested that schizophrenia may be vestigial bicameral consciousness.

     

Meme – A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.