Enjoy!
CUs, EEs and Holons
We now complete our circle, so to speak, and return to the nondual field that exists “before the beginning,” yet constantly fuels the subtle and physical fields. Nondual means “not one, not two,” and reflects the inherent Unity and Consciousness that is omnipresent within all fields of All-That-Is. According to Ken Wilber,
“… the ultimate reality [causal field] is not something seen, but rather the ever-present Seer. Things that are seen come and go, are happy or sad, pleasant or painful – but the Seer is none of those things, and it does not come and go. The Witness does not waver, does not wobble, does not enter that stream of time. The Witness is not an object, not a thing seen, but the ever-present Seer of all things, the simple Witness that is the I of Spirit, the center of the cyclone, the opening that is God, the clearing that is pure Emptiness.
“There is never a time that you do not have access to this [causal] Witnessing awareness. At every single moment, there is a spontaneous awareness of whatever happens to be present – and that simple, spontaneous, effortless awareness is ever-present Spirit itself [All-That-Is]. Even if you think you don’t see it, that very awareness is it. And thus, the ultimate state of consciousness – intrinsic Spirit itself – is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid.
“And just that is the great and guarded secret of the Nondual schools.” (53)
In just this way, then, causal, subtle, and physical fields are simultaneous aspects of The One, of All-That-Is, and therefore accessible to all.
As part of his attempt to explain all of this, Seth introduced a foundational creative force called consciousness units or CUs in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1 (1977). However, it was preceded by his electromagnetic energy units or EEs in The Seth Material (1969) and Seth Speaks (1971). As we have seen, EEs are made up of CUs, but are predisposed toward physical constructions. Thus, their involutionary momentum is headed toward the physical field rather than causal field. In this sense they function as a mediating structure between CUs and quantum fields. Thus, we have generally presented CUs (causal), EEs (subtle), and quantum fields (physical) as the three fundamental aspects of involution and evolution as the Sethian model throughout.
CUs are nonphysical, no-thing, yet manage to create some-thing. They are not anthropomorphosized, yet create all humans. They are not animal-ized, yet create all animals. They are not plant-ized, fish-ized, or bacteria-ized, yet create all plants, fish, and bacteria. They are not quantumized, yet create all quantum fields. Seth uses the CU analogy to explain how Causal Consciousness simultaneously creates in causal, subtle, and physical fields. This explanation refutes Darwinian natural selection and Dawkinsian selfish genes as Primal Cause. Natural selection and genetic mutation are important constructions, however, they are secondary, not primary.
CUs: the One appearing as many
Here’s more from Seth:
“We must unfortunately often deal with analogies, because they can form bridge works between concepts. There are units of consciousness, then, as there are units of matter. I do not want you to think of these units as particles. There is a basic unit of consciousness that, expressed, will not be broken down, as once it was thought that an atom was the smallest unit and could not be broken down. The basic unit of consciousness obviously is not physical. It contains within itself innately infinite properties of expansion, development, and organization; yet within itself always maintains the kernel of its own individuality. Despite whatever organizations it becomes part of, or how it mixes with other such basic units, its own identity is not annihilated.
“It is aware energy, identified within itself as itself, not ‘personified’ but awareized [i.e., Causal]. It is therefore the source of all other kinds of consciousness, and the varieties of its activity are infinite. It combines with others of its kind, forming then units of consciousness – as, mentioned often, atoms and molecules combine.
“This basic unit is endowed with unpredictability. That very unpredictability allows for infinite patterns and fulfillments. The word ‘soul’ unfortunately has been so used in regard to your species that it becomes highly difficult to unravel the conceptual difficulties. Using usual definitions, you would call a soul the result of a certain organization of such units, which you would then recognize as a ‘soul.’
“That leads to the old inevitable questions: Do animals have souls – or do trees, or rocks? In line with the usual definition then, in your terms, this smallest unit would be ‘soul stuff’ [in the subtle field]. That viewpoint however is highly limited, for ‘above you,’ using that scale, there are other more developed organizations of these units; and so from that ‘more exalted viewpoint’ [i.e., causal field], you would seem to be junior souls indeed.
“So I prefer, here at least, to speak of these units of consciousness instead. Their nature is the vitalizing force behind everything in your physical universe, and others as well. These units can indeed appear in several places at once, and without going through space, in your terms. Literally now, these basic units of consciousness can be in all places at once [i.e., causal, subtle, and physical fields]. They are in all places at once. They will not be recognized because they will always appear as something else.
“Of course they move faster than light. There are millions of them in one atom – many millions. Each of these units is aware of the reality of all others, and influences all others. In your terms these units can move forward or backward in time, but they can also move into thresholds of time with which you are not familiar.
“All probabilities are probed and experienced, and all possible universes created from these units. Therefore, there are realities in which the endless probabilities of one given event are probed, and all experience grouped about that venture.” (54)
We can sense, once again, the innate paradox of All-That-Is at play in Seth’s CU analogy; “They are in all places at once,” reflects that All-That-Is is both immanent and transcendent, in the world and simultaneously not of the world. The main point is that Seth used this analogy to show how Consciousness is Primal Cause, not quantum fields, and that It fuels as yet unknown involutionary and evolutionary processes.
However, in terms of modern and postmodern sciences, CUs “will not be recognized because they will always appear as something else.” Thus, our current conceptions of quantum fields are still limited to only the physical aspects of a vast multidimensional structure that includes subtle and causal energy fields that are still empirically unknown. Sages in the premodern traditions have mapped these fields via subtle and causal states of consciousness, but modern and postmodern scientists have not as yet.
So, how will we postmoderns ever learn to recognize CUs for what they really are? Will something bizarrely inexplicable always lie behind the next empirical discovery, and around each evolutionary bend? Perhaps, but current evidence strongly suggests that our collective cognitive capacities will further develop so that we can better map All-That-Is and Seth’s CUs. Still, that will require authentic dream-art sciences that include viable theories of consciousness, and epistemologies and praxis that include physical senses, reason, and inner senses.
In the mean time, why did Seth compare CUs as a structural unit to atoms? Atoms were first postulated as fundamental indivisible elements called “atomos” by premodern Greek philosophers Leucippus (5th century BCE) and Democritus (460-370 BCE). Modern nineteenth century chemists and physicists used atoms to label what they believed were just that. However, further research showed that atoms consisted of even smaller things like electrons, neutrons, and protons, and further, that protons and neutrons are made of even smaller quarks. Twenty-first century physicists continue to wax about p-branes and m-strings in their search for the foundational physical unit.
So we moderns and postmoderns are used to thinking in terms of foundational building blocks of matter, however reductionist they may be. Although, once we add Casual Consciousness back into the picture, we need a theoretical axiom to represent Primal Cause as the foundational creative force, and Seth’s CUs do just that. But CUs are not particles, and yet make particles possible, just as Consciousness is not a thing, process, or perspective but makes all things, processes, and perspectives possible.
Further, Seth’s EEs are similar to nonlocal, superluminal fields like tachyons that show that quantum physicists are beginning to probe into the surface layers of the subtle field. However, they are still limited by beliefs that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of quantum fields, so they tend to reduce everything to quantum fields. I’m not suggesting, and neither does Seth, that we reduce everything to consciousness, but instead, use CUs to conceptualize how consciousness is Primal Cause and simultaneously quantum fields.
We also need to mention the pioneering genius of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) who, after Copernicus (1473-1543), refuted the Aristotelian notion that the Earth was the center of the cosmos. However, unlike Copernicus, who speculated that the sun was the center of the cosmos, Bruno insisted that there was no center whatsoever. Unfortunately, Bruno’s ideas were not appreciated by The Church who had him burned alive as a heretic.
Moreover, Bruno intuited that Consciousness was both immanent and transcendent, consisting of what he termed monads derived from the Greek word “monos” which means ‘unit,’ ‘one,’ or ‘atom,’ and traceable back to Pythagoras (ca. 569-475). Bruno speculated that there were three species of monads: God, the monad of monads (causal), souls (subtle), and indivisible atoms (physical). As such they are very similar to the three primary aspects of Seth’s CUs.
Finally, Bruno would influence the German philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716) whose Monadologie (1714) postulated that the foundational creative force of the universe exists in fundamental monads. Leibniz’s monads contain unique perspectives and are situated within an invisible source reality. Monads can perceive all other monads in some way, but only God can perceive all monads with simultaneous clarity.
Thus, Leibniz’s monads are very similar to Bruno’s monads, Aurobindo’s Consciousness-Force, and Seth’s CUs: all are metaphors that try to explain how the The One creates the many, and how Consciousness exists simultaneously as Primal Cause and physical matter. This speaks to the clarity and depth of Leibniz’s intuition in his attempts to bridge modern science and metaphysics in the early eighteenth century. In fact, both Bruno and Leibniz were early postmoderns in this sense, and way ahead of their times!
All-That-Is as Holarchy
So how do we reconcile Seth’s CUs and EEs with postmodern theories of consciousness?
We begin with a look at natural hierarchies. As we have seen, evolution has unfolded hierarchically in three major phases to date: the physiosphere, biosphere, and noosphere. Each transcends, yet includes (Wilber) or preserves and negates (Hegel) the preceding phase. Still, the concept of hierarchy has taken a beating in some postmodern circles. For example, critics like Derrida, Foucault, and Eisler have shown how social hierarchies in religious, corporate, and military institutions are based upon unequal power distribution, and force of threat. For example, in The Chalice and The Blade (1987) Riane Eisler calls these dominator hierarchies, and shows how they are indeed abusive. However, she also points out that there are healthy hierarchies called actualization hierarchies whose purpose is to optimally actualize potentials through transformation, growth, and increased depth. When transformation stops, growth arrests, and development grinds to a halt.
But there is more to consider. Within any hierarchical level there are simultaneously spans of equivalence. For example, in the developmental stages of acorn, sapling, and tree there are spans of equivalence between all acorns, all saplings, and all trees. Within the span of any equivalence, then, we have heterarchy. Thus, these two nested elements – hierarchy and heterarchy – are at work in all biopsychosocial development. Together, they form what social philosopher Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) called a holarchy in The Ghost in the Machine (1967).
According to Peggy Wright, a pioneering voice in feminist transpersonal studies,
“… holarchy is simply an ‘asymmetrical order of increasing wholeness.’ Each order of wholeness is a holon–‘that which, being a whole in one context, is simultaneously a part in another.’ Within a holarchy, ‘the elements of that level operate by heterarchy. That is, no one element seems to be especially more important or more dominant, and each contributes more or less equally to the health of the whole level’.” (55)
Dominator hierarchies are a type of social pathology that have wreaked havoc upon the noosphere for thousands of years, as seen in Ken Wilber’s Up from Eden (1981). So, no one’s denying that. However, it’s critically important to properly situate the healthy relationship between hierarchy and heterarchy, or what’s called holarchy, to show their importance in the bigger picture. Dominator hierarchies are still found in most modern social institutions, whether capitalist or socialist. They are the legacies of premodern and modern conscious creation. The main problem is when they seek to make their own values the primary values for everyone, and in effect prevent, repress, or deny further growth and creativity, all in the name of God, money, patriotism, or whatever ideology. As such, pathological hierarchies need to be rooted out. Yet, according to Wilber, and I quite agree, the answer is not to invoke heterarchy, but actualization hierarchies that allow continued growth toward wholeness and fulfillment.
“Let us further note that, by Eisler’s own definitions, what dominator hierarchies are suppressing is in fact the individual’s own actualization hierarchies! – what she calls ‘humanity’s higher aspirations’ instead of its ‘lowest (basest) qualities.’ In other words, the cure for pathological hierarchy is actualization hierarchy, not heterarchy (which would produce more heaps and fragments, not wholes and cures).” (56)
Wilber goes on to point out there are also dominator heterarchies in which people “lose their distinctive value and identity in a communal fusion and meltdown. ... All values vanish into a herd mentality of the bland leading the bland.” (57) The result is further fragmentation, repression, and alienation. The larger point is that we are evolving, individually and collectively, toward wholeness and fulfillment, and this involves simultaneous hierarchical and heterarchical relationships.
For instance, each stage of an actualization hierarchy, like the three major stages of evolution thus far, is defined in terms of increased complexity, optimized development, and transformation. Each stage transcends and includes its predecessors but not vice versa. This “not vice versa” is the key to understanding the natural direction of hierarchy in the physical field. If we destroy the noosphere, for instance, the biosphere will still exist because if we kill all humans, whales, dolphins, and porpoises, then lower mammals, fish, insects, plants, and bacteria would all still exist. However, if we destroy the biosphere, the noosphere is also destroyed. This is the “not vice versa” of natural hierarchical unfolding. Thus, subsequent stages are always more complex, more whole, and yet include key elements of every stage that precedes them.
In the noosphere, then, concepts like civil rights, women’s rights, animal rights, gay and lesbian rights, disabled rights, etc. are all postmodern attempts to promote actualization hierarchies that allow people to grow toward wholeness and fulfillment. So the ideal, then, is to design and nurture actualization hierarchies, and constrain dominator hierarchies and heterarchies wherever possible. But to throw out, deny, or otherwise marginalize all hierarchy, in terms of healthy development and fulfillment, is to throw out the modern baby with the postmodern bathwater. That’s a modern gem we very much need to keep in our postmodern theory of consciousness.
Moreover, all development begins at stage one and proceeds from there. Humans and animals didn’t poof into existence fully formed. They evolved over billions of years from physios, to bios, to noos. There is a natural order to development, too. Acorns turn into saplings, not butterflies. Saplings grow into trees, not potatoes. Trees grow into fertilizer, not infants.
Imagine, then, how this applies to the complexity of the current noosphere, and its worldview dynamics. There are roughly six billion people, all of which are at different physical, mental, and spiritual stages of development. Hundreds of people die and are born every second. Every new birth begins at stage one and develops from there. With any luck premodern grows into modern. Current estimates are that approximately 70% of the noosphere is physically, mentally, and spiritually at premodern or modern stages. However, only 25% is near postmodern, and even less in later stages.
Holons
Arthur Koestler coined the term holon as a unit of whole/parts that form any holarchy. For example, a human holon is a whole made up of cells, molecules, quantum fields, and CUs. A cell, in turn, is a whole made up of molecules, quantum fields, and CUs. By holonically situating any thing, process, or event within a holarchy, we can move beyond the modern reductio ad absurdum of fundamental parts. It opens the conceptual door beyond myths based on purely materialist or idealist conceptions of physical reality, because it includes both. Ken Wilber further developed these concepts in Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (1995) where he applied holons and holarchy to the “Great Chain of Being.” His twenty tenets of holons provide a general outline of the intricate way holarchy works. (58)
To summarize, holarchy consists of nested hierarchies (depths of unequivalence) and heterarchies (spans of equivalence). Proper use of hierarchy includes some kind of ranking guided by the principle of “not vice versa.” So ranking simply means that each properly identified wider hierarchical region becomes a superholon in relation to the previous subholon because they “transcend and include” their predecessors. For example, the following ranking or scale of depth occurs naturally:
- Physiosphere = quantum fields (Framework 1)
- Biosphere = quantum fields + self-replicating cellular life (Framework 1)
- Noosphere = quantum fields + self-replicating cellular life + self-reflexive awareness/triune mammalian brain (Framework 1)
- Psychosphere = quantum fields + self-replicating cellular life + self-reflexive awareness/triune mammalian brain + subtle/astral bodies in waking state (Framework 1)
Linking means that within each hierarchical region we find holons of equal value that are crucial for overall systemic stability (i.e., no subholons or superholons). For example, the following links or spans of equivalence occur naturally:
- Physiosphere = atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, magnesium, gold, silver, etc. (Framework 1)
- Biosphere = cells in viruses, plants, fish, birds, animals, etc. (Framework 1)
- Noosphere = triune mammalian brains in humans, whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc. (Framework 1)
- Psychosphere = subtle/astral bodies in waking state in humans, whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc. (Framework 1)
Seth’s CUs and EEs were coined around the same time as Koestler’s holons in the late 1960s. As we saw, Seth’s CUs are very similar to Bruno’s and Leibniz’s monads, and Aurobindo’s Consciousness-Force. They are also very similar to Koestler’s holons. According to postmodern philosopher Christian de Quincey (b.1949):
“There is more than a superficial resemblance, for example, between Leibniz’s monads and Arthur Koestler’s double-aspect Janus-faced ’holons’ – a concept that is gaining currency in modern holistic and systems theories, and also, most notably, in the hierarchic-integral evolutionary spiritual model developed by Ken Wilber (1995).” (59)
These concepts are all attempts to explain the complex relationships between Consciousness and physical matter. So Seth’s CUs are indeed holonic, causal and subtle whole/parts that form all physical whole/parts. However, CUs also function as the foundational “Whole/Part” that contains all knowledge of all “whole/parts.” When theorists talk about experience or perspectives going all the way up or down, like a möbius strip CUs are simultaneously the “bottom” and “top,” because all the way up or down is only a spatio-temporal metaphor that applies to the physical field and “particle focus.” And Consciousness transcends yet includes the physical field.
Some may argue that Seth’s CUs are reductionist, taking the idea of physical building blocks into nonphysical fields. And that would be reductionist. However, CUs actually embrace the basic paradox of All-That-Is as Ground and Goal, Design and Designer, subholon and Superholon, immanent particles in the physical field and transcendent waves in subtle and causal fields. Thus, CUs are Seth’s attempt to explain how The One can simultaneously be the many, the Primal Cause of all manifestation as a nested simultaneity of causal CUs, subtle EEs, and physical quantum fields.
Still, we don’t wish to reduce all physical constructions to consciousness. That’s an extreme form of idealism to be avoided, one that has tended in premodern forms to demean the physical field as some kind of illusion or hellish wheel of suffering to be escaped from. I support a middle way that situates all three basic fields as equally important, equally interpenetrated, and equally centers of the Kosmos.
Now, since we need to properly situate the basic elements within All-That-Is as Holarchy, the following list shows heterarchical linking and hierarchical ranking in terms of basic holonic relationships, and is meant to outline the basic involutionary and evolutionary processes within causal, subtle, and physical fields in terms of Seth’s CUs.
– ...CUs (consciousness units) are “Whole/Parts” (All-That-Is “before the beginning” as Primal Cause/Causal Field)
– EEs (electromagnetic energy units/Subtle Field) are wholes made of parts (CUs/Causal Field)
– M-strings (Physical Field/Physiosphere) are whole made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-superposed quantum fields)
– Electrons, neutrons, protons, etc. (Physiosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-superposed quantum fields called m-strings)
– Atoms (Physiosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-electrons, neutrons, protons, etc.)
– Molecules (Physiosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-atoms)
– Liver cells, other cells, etc. (Biosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-molecules)
– Livers (Biosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-liver cells, other cells, etc.)
– Bodies (Biosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-organs, nervous systems, lymphatic systems, etc.)
– Self-Reflexive Minds (Noosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-bodies with triune brains)
– Souls-In-Flesh (Psychosphere) are wholes made of parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-self-reflexive minds)
– Spirit (Theosphere) is a Whole made of Parts (CUs-in-EEs-in-souls-in-flesh)…
Once properly situated, we can begin explore all sorts of holarchic relationships. For instance, the idea in the noosphere, again, is to promote social hierarchies and heterarchies that actualize, not dominate, promote growth, not repress it. Still, we also need to caution that holarchic theory can be distorted and misused, just like any theory. Noospheric dominator hierarchies are so intelligent that they can talk the talk of actualization without walking that talk. Thus, on socio-political levels, holarchic theory must carefully and accurately situate all elements within a holarchy. Get it wrong and we unleash the next form of Social Darwinism, like that used by Nazi Germany, where hijacked ideals of equality, egalitarianism, and worldcentric rights were, in hindsight, unequal, tribal, and ethnocentric values masquerading as such.
Again, there is no need to marginalize authentic actualization hierarchy in the noosphere, since it is also found in the physiosphere and biosphere. It’s just that the noosphere allows for health and pathology within any stage of development, so when entire societies descend into hellish pathology, as in Nazi Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur, the effects are devastating. We still live in a time with weapons of mass destruction, that if misused could wreak unprecedented havoc way beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So the noosphere deals with increased complexity that is orders of magnitude beyond the biosphere and physiosphere.
Moreover, we can now more clearly see how the noosphere, a tiny subfield of All-That-Is, and its frothy tapestry of simultaneous premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews relates to the biosphere and physiosphere. It allows us to more clearly discern emergent trends across the globe, and better design educational, economic, military, political, scientific policies that promote optimal growth and fulfillment, not repression and fragmentation, because it factors in that everyone starts at stage one and develops from there. The deep structures of worldviews and stages of development are not going away, though their surface level manifestations will always morph to reflect overall life conditions. Premodern is the basis for modern to emerge, which in turn allows postmodern to emerge, and so on. The key, then, is to find ways to nurture larger percentages of the population toward postmodern worldviews via actualization holarchies.
We are beginning to see stratified or integral approaches that account for large numbers of people co-existing in premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews. For example, in the pioneering work of psychologist Don Beck (b.1940), he used an approach called Spiral Dynamics in South Africa over a period of fifteen years to help the country move from the oppression of Apartheid into a more democratic system without civil war. Beck recently co-founded the Center for Human Emergence in Copenhagen to continue his work. Ken Wilber and colleagues at the Integral Institute in Boulder, CO are applying integral theory to education, finance, politics, art, spirituality, and more. They all account for the simultaneous stages of development that include premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews. The core idea is learning to properly identify and work with their natural evolutionary momentum toward increased wholeness and fulfillment. Their goal is nothing short of replacing the failing United Nations.
In summary, Seth’s CUs and EEs are holarchic, a way to conceptualize how Causal Consciousness creates some-thing from no-thing through the action of involution as The Whole (CUs) becomes parts in the subtle field (EEs), which in turn, manifests as parts in the physical field (physiosphere) only to move toward Wholeness again through the action of evolution (theosphere). We talk about experience, processes, or perspectives going all the way down and inward to quantum fields, and then imagine EEs and CUs to be physically smaller, but that’s not the case. They are actually more Whole, closer to All-That-Is in the “wave focus” of subtle and causal fields of consciousness. The “particle focus” manifest in the physical field is only the tip of the iceberg, however, the “submerged” aspects of these “icebergs” are nonphysical sources of infinite potential energy.
Clearly, we need to discover more about the workings of the subtle and causal fields, though as the Adams’ axiom suggests, as soon as we do, something more bizarrely inexplicable will arise within All-That-Is. Such is the cat and mouse nature of consciousness as it forgets and remembers itself through the sport of Lila, the dance of Maya, and the divine camouflage of All-That-Is. But this needn’t prohibit us in our pursuit of the knowledge quest, only temper any absolute claims that we will ever complete the so-called theory of everything. The Adams’ axiom parsimoniously expresses the paradox of why a complete theory of everything is impossible and really unnecessary. All we need is an integral theory of consciousness that prevents the mistake of reducing consciousness to quantum fields, and vice versa, one that properly situates both within holarchy, or nested hierarchy and heterarchy, and move forward from there.
CUs and the Laws of the Inner Universe
From Seth’s earlier description of CUs as Primal Cause, we see that they are imbued with innate Universal Propensities, but the human word “law” is too narrow to describe them. Though Seth calls them “laws of the inner universe,” they are his attempt to describe Absolute Universal Truths. How do we define that? And how does our definition relate to the notion of the God of Abraham literally handing the ten commandments to Moses?
The latter is a premodern fairy tale used to invoke a patriarchal authority figure, God the Father, as the source of Absolute Truth. So much so, that the written scriptures were and still are considered God’s Law, and thus supercede any human-made law, completely ignoring the fact that humans are always required to interpret and implement said “Absolute Laws.” Seth, like all postmoderns, refutes this belief system, who see it as the product of regressive dominator hierarchies, namely, the Abrahamic monotheistic religions. And yet, as we saw, approximately 40% of the planet currently embraces this worldview, so we need to do our utmost to work within its healthy forms.
In our postmodern definition, then, to be Absolute, Universal, and True, any Law must be translatable in some way to every field of consciousness. Therefore, they are not associated only with noospheric beliefs or concepts, but must function as innate propensities for all action within the causal, subtle, and physical fields, including physiosphere and biosphere to qualify as Absolute Universal Truth. As such, these Truths will appear to us as very abstract, because they must apply in some form within All-That-Is.
Therefore, Absolute Universal Truth is different than propositional truth. Propositional truth deals with objectively verifiable things from only third person perspectives within the noosphere. For example, two plus two equals four. This propositional truth does not exist in birds, fish, rocks, or quantum fields. So it’s easy to confuse propositional truth, truth with a small “t” with Absolute Universal Truth, or truth with a capital “T,” because an Absolute Universal Truth will apply across physios, bios, and noos, and subtle and causal fields.
Further, there are additional types of noospheric truth, for example, personal sincerity deals with subjective first person perspectives. For instance, am I telling you the truth, or am I lying? If I tell you I’m hungry or happy, you can check that out. But if I tell you I don’t care if you steal my car, I may not be accurately reporting my feelings, inadvertently lying to myself and thus to you. There are other types of noospheric truth, but the main point is that they are not Absolute Universals when they apply to only the noosphere or the physical field. Again, they must apply in some form to physical, subtle, and causal fields.
As such, CUs are innately imbued with Absolute Universal Truths that originate beyond, and yet are reflected within noospheric beliefs and concepts. As such, they can’t be legislated or enforced, because they exist “before the beginning,” in the beginning, and right now. While we can list them in English, the words only represent these innate creative propensities toward all action. In this context, then, value fulfillment is the Absolute Universal Truth that Seth focused on in his creation mythos. Value fulfillment is the divine propensity for action in which All-That-Is lovingly creates, develops, and nurtures every atom, ocean, and galaxy with the best intent of every aspect in mind.
Why did Seth exclude the other laws of the inner universe in his musings in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment? Recall that he briefly mentioned spontaneity and cooperation. One answer is that this tale of the creation is not complete and finished. It never can be! It is not offered as a revelation from God in concrete terms, only in the sense that we each must create our own interpretations and meanings. Our postmodern Creation Myth is still in the process of emerging right now.
A second answer is that to include all ten laws of the inner universe in the context of this linear narrative would result in a hopeless maze of paradoxes that might overwhelm the rational mind. While his intent is to force the rational mind toward the transrational, he masterfully walks that fine line between intellect and intuition in his teaching style. As the aphorism goes, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step.” So Seth provides little bits at a time; puzzle pieces that hint at the deeper nature and mystery of the Puzzle.
As a reminder, then, here is the complete list of Absolute Universal Truths or “laws of the inner universe” presented by Seth in The Early Sessions Book Two (1997). These represent the innate creative qualities within CUs.
- Value Fulfillment
- Energy Transformation
- Spontaneity
- Durability
- Creation
- Consciousness
- Capacity For Infinite Mobility
- Changeability & Transmutation
- Cooperation
- Quality Depth
Though I have listed ten laws, one could argue that there are eleven or twelve in the Seth material, but this is not the point. We aren’t dealing with the amps in Spinal Tap! It’s less about numbers, and more about the qualities of innate action. These laws are qualitative aspects of All-That-Is, and to imagine that they could be perfectly formulated into any spoken or mathematical language, is the path to distortion and inevitable delusion. As the Taoist saying goes, “The Tao which is written or spoken is not the true Tao.” So take them with a grain of salt.
Now, Seth’s laws of the inner universe also function as what Wilber calls involutionary givens. That is, these laws exist “before the beginning,” or before the Big Bang, and thus influence all evolutionary unfolding subsequent to the Big Bang. Wilber (b.1949) uses terms like Eros, Agape, and prototypes, Whitehead (1861-1947) called them eternal objects, Jung (1875-1961) called them archetypes, and Sheldrake (b.1942) uses terms like energy, form, causation, development, and creativity to represent involutionary givens as a priori influences, not just in the evolutionary sequence, but “before the beginning” in the involutionary sequence.
Again, Seth’s inner laws originate in the causal field within CUs, are translated into the subtle field within EEs “before the beginning,” and are then translated into quantum fields as an evolutionary telos or pull towards development, growth, and Wholeness. This is not to suggest that conscious creation – Sethian involution/evolution – is simply a wind-up, wind-down affair. Nothing is predetermined in any fixed way. Conscious creation as involution, cosmogenesis, and evolution all occur simultaneously. Thus, when we combine Seth’s inner laws with CUs and EEs, we get a general outline of how the causal, subtle, and physical fields interact “before the beginning,” in the beginning, and during the whole magnificent shebang.
In larger terms, then, value fulfillment, like all of the inner laws of the universe, forms a foundational creative force that transcends our beliefs systems of good and bad. Every thing, every action that occurs in our universe is fueled by the underlying action of value fulfillment. This includes illness, poverty, dis-ease, death and all the things we consider to be “bad,” as well as abundance, wellness, beauty, peace, and all the things we consider “good.”
When we ask questions like, “Why did God create a universe in which bad can occur?” or “Isn’t death a dis-ease that needs a cure?” or “If the universe of good intent why do bad things happen?” we still don’t understand the workings of value fulfillment. These inner laws, in order to qualify as Absolute Universal Truth, must apply in some form to All-That-Is: causal, subtle, and physical fields. They must express the basic paradox of All-That-Is and be simultaneously transcendent (involutionary) and immanent (evolutionary). Therefore, within the physical field they must also apply in some form to the physiosphere, biosphere, and noosphere. As such, there are different ethical and moral translations of these inner laws throughout All-That-Is.
Thus, when we try to impose our noospheric translation as the only Absolute Universal translation, we have only succeeded in taking a noospherecentric approach that confuses its little slice of All-That-Is AS all that is. It completely misses the larger picture. The modern noosphere marks the first time, as English biologist Julian Huxley (1887-1975) marveled, where evolution became aware of itself. And the postmodern noosphere marks the first time that evolution remembered that involution, or Causal Consciousness, is very much in play.
So, what, then, are the moral and ethical implications of CUs and the laws of the inner universe in the noosphere?
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