I worry a lot about the state of the world; there are so many things going wrong that the planet isn’t going to last long at the present rate of the loss of vitality. “Gaia” is dying, and everything from wars to droughts are caused by the declining vitality of the planet. Taken as a whole, the planet shows a fairly low level of spiritual consciousness. I try to look for the root cause of the problem – fear, poverty, oppression – and it all comes down to the same thing. In order for planetary consciousness to rise, it is necessary for the consciousness of individual people to rise. I have described eight patterns of consciousness in my writings (vide, e.g., Patterns of Illusion and Change), but the main axis goes from infinite clarity, love, and joy, to deepening confusion, anger, violence, chaos, and death.
The overall level of planetary consciousness is way too low, down in the struggle for survival in the Red and Violet range. Most of the world is barely above that in the range of Orange and Blue – war and peace. How can we raise the level higher, to regions of expanding love? I have several suggestions:
In the first place, everyone would benefit from a clearer understanding of these spiritual levels. Since every aspect of one’s life improves as one rises in spiritual consciousness, this should create a self-reinforcing process of growth, depending upon how clearly the process be understood. But, instead of waiting for a slowly elevating spiritual consciousness to raise the amount of love in the world, it is also possible for increasing amounts of love in the world to accelerate the growth in spiritual consciousness.
One way to accomplish this objective is to broaden the scope of loving contacts. For most people, “love” means the perfect union at the top of the diagram, the color White (vide: Tetragrammaton). But circumstances are not always right for the expression of this pattern. However, the Green and Gold, right below the White, offer alternative possibilities of loving contact – giving and receiving love. In this case, the receiving party is relatively passive. The reciprocal love represented by the color White is the pinnacle of spiritual consciousness, but is not always an available choice. Expressions in the Gold and Green range are far more easily accessible.
Another idea for propagating larger amounts of love may seem pretty radical, but it could accomplish an even doubling of the available love in the world if the policy were adopted. There are two primary genders of people in the world, with a great many variations of expression in between, but it has always surprised me that everyone seems to be expected to confine their sexual interest to only one of the genders. Even in the case of gay (or otherwise queer) persons, it is usually expected that all of one’s contacts will be of one gender or the other. But what a different world it would be if the normal expectation of everyone were not to find any one perfect (or otherwise) partner, but to find one partner (or best friend) of each gender! You do the math – it amounts to a neat doubling of available love in the world. It makes sense to me. There are (at least) two genders out there, and they are generally quite different in many ways, but I like them both (I also like most of the alternative genders, while we are at it, especially those in between the extremes of male or female expression). I have a normal interest in women, and the kinds of relationship possible with women, but I also have an equal, if different, interest in men, and the kinds of relationship possible with men.
This idea leads naturally to my next idea – if men and women are going to be loving more than one gender, it becomes possible to consider a larger scope of domestic establishment. In fact, the possibilities of domestic establishment exactly parallel the sequence of the primary mysteries of nature or philosophy (vide: Tetragrammaton). The first possibility (corresponding to the First Arcanum) is Solitude.
A person who is altogether alone has no center, or ground of being, except as noted below. There are three common manifestations of this pattern – the Priest, the Magician, and the Madman. The Madman, of course, has lost all touch with reality, and all of the elements of his life spin off into confusion and chaos.
The Priest centers his life around the Will of God. The questions about a celibate clergy are meaningless, as celibacy is practically the definition of a priest. The Magician, on the other hand, knows only his own will. The exercise of a personal will, while practically the definition of life itself, is fraught with danger. While the Magician tries to protect himself within magic circles, the danger to the Magician is not so much the presence of evil spirits which might penetrate his magic circle, as it is that the energies he unleashes in the furtherance of his own will will turn back upon himself to his own destruction.
The Pair Bond is the primary unit of human relationship known most famously as the union of Male and Female, and representing the Second Arcanum of metaphysics. There are a great many variations on this theme; in the first place, the male and female energies do not necessarily have to be represented by biologically male and female genders, nor do both parties have to be human, or even alive – for example, a man and his dog, or a junkie with his “wife” (his syringe outfit – but this “pair bond” is a very thinly disguised example of solitude, in the aspect of madness).
Furthermore, pairings of two male energies, or two female energies (again, not necessarily represented by the nominal gender) are often found, though not nearly as frequently as the paradigm male and female.
But if all that sounds complicated, the endless novelty of Triangles, involving an intentional relationship of three persons, goes way beyond. The dynamics of a Triangle are totally different from those of the Pair Bond, giving rise to an explosive multitude of social possibilities of endless complexity. This infinite unfolding of endless possibility is characteristic of the Third Arcanum.
Intentional complex relationships beyond the Triangle are also possible – patterns of Four (usually essentially two couples – the Fourth Arcanum) are probably more common than Triangles, and become the square building blocks for a stable foundation of society. A pattern of Five (the Fifth Arcanum) will exhibit many of the radical aspects of Triangles, due to the increased propensity for novelty and change, as compared with patterns of Two or Four. Communities larger than five experience diminishing returns, as the bonds grow weaker with larger numbers.
Yet another opportunity of increasing the amount of available love in the world is by the education of the young. What a radically different world this would be if parents would teach little boys (especially) to love one another instead of fighting all the time! Children are never too young to learn about the different levels of spiritual consciousness and expression, and they can be led to the higher paths just as easily as be allowed to experience the lower levels. As a new generation of these children grow up, there will be no more war, and perhaps we could finally get to work to solve some of the pressing environmental problems that threaten the survival of life on earth.
