The Shape & Sound of Wholeness

In Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung writes: “The mandala symbolizes, by its central point, the ultimate unity of all archetypes as well as of the multiplicity of the phenomenal world, and is therefore the empirical equivalent of the metaphysical concept of a unus mundus. The alchemical equivalent is the lapis and its synonyms, in particular the Microcosm (Main, 1998).” The unus mundus can also be understood through Jung’s idea of the psychoid, wherein psyche and matter are considered to be two sides of the same coin. Jung’s understanding of the pyschoid nature of reality is thus synonymous with David Bohm’s concept of the implicate order. The implicate order appears to be enfolded with the fundamental order of reality, while the explicate order is unfolded as a particular valence of the implicate order – the reality that we all perceive and experience. This ontological monism can also be seen in the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, in which he transcends the bifurcation of Cartesian dualism by envisioning the physical and mental as dipolar aspects that “are like the opposite poles of a battery or magnet; they are necessarily together (Kling, 2019).” Thus, I created the mandala-like diagram above to depict the coalescing ideas of these figures in a synthesized geometry of wholeness. However, while visual imagery does provide us a way to “see” reality, I am also interested in exploring how we can “listen” to wholeness. “Philosophers have disdained the information about the universe obtained through visceral feelings,” writes Whitehead “and have concentrated on visual feelings (1978).” In order to enable these visceral feelings to enter into the center, I have displayed musical notes in a particular structure to portray the auditory unfolding of the unus mundus. Therefore, through a multidimensional lens I aim to explore the metaphysical nature of wholeness. 

This metaphysical exploration begins with a simple yet inherently mysterious question: what is wholeness? Whilst rubbing my eyebrows, I begin to gently touch my closed eyes and wonder: “why do I have two eyes and not one?” and “why is it that two separated eyes provide a unified perspective?” So I drew a simple diagram to explore this further:

The two black circles represent my eyes, the inner realm depicts my internal neuropsychology, and the outer realm illustrates what I perceive. The inner and the outer circles seem to respectively depict a unified field. Coincidentally, the diagram is shaped in an identical manner to Whitehead’s diagram (reproduced by Laura Hyatt Edwards) of an event-particle’s historical route:  

While the diagram is depicting a four dimensional structure in which time is the fourth dimension, Whitehead is clear about the fact that, “we should not conceive an event as space and time, but as a unit from which space and time are abstracts [...] unlike discrete particles with limited fields event-particles exhibit more ‘spread.’ An event particle’s ‘spread’ is its historical route in space-time (Edwards, 2014).” This notion of a ‘spread’ is what Whitehead calls the extensive continuum, which can also be understood through William James’ idea of the field of consciousness. “As our mental fields succeed one another, each has its center of interest,” writes James “around which the objects of which we are less and less attentively conscious fade to a margin so faint that its limits are unassignable. Some fields are narrow fields and some are wide fields (1917).” Thus, an event in Whitehead’s metaphysics can be understood as the center in James’ field of consciousness. As an actual event completes the process of concrescence, it perishes into objective immortality – into the margins of the field. 

Whitehead’s notion of objective immortality can quite clearly be translated into Jung’s understanding of the collective unconscious. The collective captures the objective and transpersonal dimension, while the unconscious sheds light on the immortal nature of the unseeable reality. While Jung’s depiction of the psyche is most often portrayed in the form of a mandala, the diagram below provides another perspective into his imaginative psychology: 

In contrast to the two previous diagrams above, this diagram of the psyche provides a more vertically intuitive understanding of reality. Although Jung’s diagram is not shaped like a light cone, the collective unconscious could be molded into another cone, coconning the Self with the ego. As Jung indicates through the Axiom of Maria: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” Thus, with Whitehead’s horizontal depiction of a dipolar and extensively related reality, and Jung’s vertical portrayal of the psyche, a quaternity is born. 

As shown in the very first diagram, the horizontal light cone is composed of two triangles that represent the physical past and the mental future. This diagram is a depiction of Whitehead’s notion of prehension, wherein the traditionally representational view of perception is modified into a holistic understanding of perception that captures the unbifurcated relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. “While the past is prehended physically,” writes theologian Sheri Kling “Whitehead argued that potentials are entertained in the mental pole of each occasion due to the fact that “possibilities and values are not ‘physical’ actual entities.” Therefore, such possibilities are experiences as conceptual prehensions (2018).” The vertical light cone depicts two triangles that contain Jung’s idea of the conscious ego and unconscious shadow. At the center of this quaternity is the Self; which is also an actual occasion. In his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung writes: “I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later, everything points towards the center. This insight gave me stability, and gradually my inner peace returned. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate (Main, 1998).” Although Jung indicates that there is no linear evolution, auditory perception through musical concepts in jazz music may propose otherwise.

Jazz music is built on the relationship between the horizontal and vertical, in which the former represents melodic phrases while the later indicates harmonic chords. The horizontal concept provides the musician with greater freedom of movement, as they can rhythmically create lyrical patterns. On the other hand, the vertical concept enables the musician to play with arpeggiations as they faithfully outline and articulate the unfolding of each chord. Ethnomusicologist, Paul F. Berliner elucidates in his book Thinking in Jazz: “Improvisers are concerned not only with sharing their time-keeping role, but with occupying complementary space within the music’s texture and achieving a collective transparency of sound in which each part is discernible. Within horizontal space, musicians seek to create a complementary level of rhythmic activity by improvising patterns whose rhythmic density is appropriate for the room that others leave for them. In vertical space, they try to improvise in a melodic range that does not obscure the performance of others (1994).” A great example of a musician who explored these two dimensions is John Coltrane. In his technique called “sheets of sound,” Coltrane systematically evolved out of a horizontal approach in which he played melodic lines harmonically with chords, to a more vertical approach that included “vertically “stacked” flurries of notes which intensify the harmonic density of the music, and which expand the tonal impact as well (Grimshaw, 2014).” Along with the horizontal and vertical concept, there is the core idea of improvisation itself, which also beautifully reflects Whitehead’s process of concrescence. As the musician plays their instrument, each preceding note is a datum for the next note (while it simultaneously perishes into objective immortality). Thus, the momentary note that is being played represents the center, the actual occasion, and the Self. In turn, the entire song reflects the horizontal and vertical journey of the Self, which in Jung’s understanding can most definitely be seen and felt as a circumambulation. 

Thus now we have a visual and auditory perception of wholeness. “The mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known not only in formal, logical, mathematical terms,” writes Bohm “but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc. (Perhaps we could say that this is what is involved in harmony between the ‘left brain’ and the ‘right brian’.) This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society (1980).” Bohm’s notion of “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” can also be understood through Whitehead’s idea of concrescence. As the first diagram indicates with the arrows: a circular movement in constant flow. However, Bohm’s concept of the implicate and explicate order can be depicted in the following manner, in which the quaternity displayed in the first diagram is in a rhythmic movement between unfolding and enfolding: 

The (unfolded) explicate order captures reality in its width, while the (enfolded) implicate order demonstrates the narrowness of the structure. This notion of width and narrowness is evident in Whitehead's philosophy, as he says: “The right chaos, and the right vagueness, are jointly required for any effective harmony. They produce the massive simplicity which has been expressed by the term ‘narrowness.’ Thus chaos is not to be identified with evil; for harmony requires the due coordination of chaos, vagueness, narrowness, and width (1978).” Since the Self is at the center of this quaternity, it is apparent that when the entire structure is unfolded the Self embodies tremendous width. On the other hand, when the quaternity is enfolded the Self can only perceive and be perceived through a narrow opening. 

In a letter to J.R. Smythies, Jung described the psyche as “the highest intensity in the smallest space (Main, 1998),” which quite significantly aligns with Whitehead’s proposition that “intensity is the reward of narrowness (1978).” Furthermore, intensity through narrowness is displayed in Coltrane’s “sheets of sound” through the lack of temporal pauses between notes. Coltrane’s masterpiece album A Love Supreme was a spiritual endeavor, with the fourth movement being a “literal breathing of melody into the words of [a] poem (Grimshaw, 2014).” A heavy concentration of chaos, vagueness, narrowness, and width gave rise to a powerful and divine reality in the form of sound. So I cannot help but wonder: could it be that when we experience such moments of intensity and narrowness, that we are actually feeling glimpses of the implicate order? What other kinds of shapes and sounds can bring us closer and deeper to this fundamental order of wholeness? 

References

Berliner, P. K. (1994). Thinking in Jazz. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 

Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order. New York, NY: Routledge Classics. 

Edwards L.H. (2014) Alfred North Whitehead and the History of Consciousness. In: Smith C., 

Whitaker H. (eds) Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience. 

History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. 

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8774-1_13

Grimshaw, M. (2014). The Counter-Narratives of Radical Theology and Popular Music. New 

York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 

James, W. (1917). The Varieties of Religious Experience. San Bernardino, CA: Pantianos 

Classics. 

Kling, S. D. (2019). Whitehead’s metaphysics as a cosmological framework for transpersonal 

psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 47, 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1037/hum0000124

Main, R. (1998). Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 

Press. 

Whitehead, A. N. (1978). Process and Reality. New York, NY: Free Press.