ANIMA MUNDIINHERANT IN THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF OUR HOME

PLANET THERE IS A BLUEPRINT FOR MAKING BRAINS!

This presentation offers information that suggests that this extraordinary statement might be true!

Perhaps you have heard of Plato’s Anima Mundi? It is sometimes translated as meaning ‘World Mind’.

Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.

—Plato, Timaeus, 29/30; 4th century BCE

This is an ‘intuitive’ concept completely off the wall from a scientific point of view but it has a strange ‘feeling’ of ‘rightness’ which, of course, cannot be empirically proved and therefore is not worthy of serious consideration.

Imagine, then, how I felt when in 1986, fascinated with esoteric systems, I stumbled upon a model that appeared to be this very thing - a Blueprint of the Brain …

I was both awed and horrified.

What was I supposed to do with such a momentous discovery?

I knew that I had to share it, but how does one go about presenting as REALITY an idea that everyone knows for sure is an invention of the human imagination.

This presentation is my latest attempt to give this newly discovered metaphysical model an airing. If you have some spare time please will you give up some of it to checking this out - if it’s rubbish you can bin it.

This is the diagram of the LAPIS PHILOSOPHORUM from Jung’s book Aion. Each of the four quarters of the circle

represent one of The Four Elements.

‘The lapis (the philosopher’s stone) consists of the four elements or has to be put together from them’.

Morienus, from Tractatus Aureus, Aion, p 236-237.

‘And as a man is made up of four elements, so also is the stone, and so it is dug out of man, and thou are its ore’.

Ibid, p. 168.

The Four Elements of Greek science are not the same as the table of the elements that categorises the building blocks of the physical world, one of the crowning glories of modern chemistry. The Greek elements define a simpler, fundamental categorisation yet they also have very ‘real’ physical properties.

Solid Earth and liquid Water have gravity (they fall).

Restless Air and energetic Fire have levity (they rise).

Not all scientists regard them as meaningless. David Bowman writes in his article ‘The World on Fire’ (New Scientist, Oct 10, 2009):

‘.. the Greeks had it right with their classification of fire, air, earth, and water …’

And the elements don’t only have physical properties – the elements have long been used as metaphors for our four methods of gathering and disseminating information.

Modern Science has provided us with

sophisticated explanations that allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the original metaphors.

Earth = sensing. Sensing provides us with information about our exterior physical reality. Is it hard or soft? Is it comfortable or unpleasant? The Earth’ s gravity plays a major role in sensing.

Water = feeling. Feeling supplies information on our internal reality. The heart pumps the blood around our bodies. When we are frightened it speeds up. When we feel relaxed it slows down. Feelings speak through borrowing metaphors from earth and fire. If we are happy we say we are floating on clouds, sometimes we feel weighed down by anxiety. We can feel bright or filled with darkness.

Hardware. Earth and Water = the chemistry of our being:Our bodies are made of Earth and Water.

Air = thinking. Air carries information. Sound waves are symbolised by Air, as is the electrical activity in our brains.

Fire = Intuition. ‘I see’, we say. Intuition ‘knows’ things that can be difficult to convey using words (in this sense it is akin to feeling). The Sun is a great furnace. It gives light. Without it we would have no need for eyes. Intuition knows because it sees.

Software. Air and Fire = the physics of our being: these, so called, ‘elements’, are processes.

Shakespeare’s sonnets 44 and 45 are born of this expressive psychological categorisation. Sonnet number 44 is concerned with the frustrating inadequacies that come with the heavy, negative elements, Earth and Water.

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,Injurious distance should not stop my wayFor then despite of space I would be brought,From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.No matter then, although my foot do standUpon the furthest earth removed from thee,For nimble thought can jump both see and landAs soon as think the place where it would be.But ah, thought kills me that I am not thoughtTo leap large lengths of miles where thou art goneBut am so much of earth and water wroughtI must attend time’s leisure with my moan. Receiving naught by elements so slow, But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

Sonnet number 45 is concerned with the light, positive elements, Fire and Air.

The other two, slight air, and purging fire,Are both with thee, where-ever I abide,The first my thoughts, the other my desire,These present absent with swift motion slide.For when these quicker Elements are gone,In tender embassy of love to thee,My life, being made of four, with two alone, Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.Until life’s composition be recurredBy those swift elements returned from theeWhich even but now come back again assuredOf thy fair health, recounting it to me, This told, I joy, and then no longer glad, I send them back again and straight grow sad.

The Astrological Signs of The Zodiac are also identified

with the Four Elements.

Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, are Fire signs.

Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn, are Earth signs.

Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius, are Air signs.

Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, are Water signs.

Fire and Air are positive elements Earth and Water are negative elements

Mathematicians use numbers to make models. Stephen Wolfram in his book A New Kind of Science (www.wolfram-media.com) tells us that simple formulae lie behind chaotic phenomenon. He has shown how a logical manipulation of numbers produces complex patterns that can reproduce themselves– just like life. He calls this process Cellular Automata.

This blueprint is born of a logical manipulation of very specific psychologically meaningful symbols, an amalgam of Western and Eastern esoteric thought. It works in the same way as Wolfram’s Cellular Automata. A simple binary formulae, positive/negative, on/off - the Chinese named this yang/yin (it really impressed Leibnitz) – is subjected to further logical divisions to produce a spectacular result – a self-reproducing intelligence system that study has persuaded me matches our own.

The story of the discovery begins here.

For more information on this simple formula see essay Treading on the Tail of the Tiger.

Greene, L, Relating; An Astrological Guide to Living with Others on a

Small Planet. UK, Thorsons Publishers Ltd, 1977.

Air

Earth Fire

Water

Dr Liz Greene is one of the great astrologers of our times - she is also an expert on Jung. On the left you can see Liz’s diagram based on the Philosopher’s Stone (a copy of the original is printed on the right at an angle of 45 degrees). Liz is illustrating how the elements merge together, creating four additional cognitive processes.

Air/thinking merges with fire/intuition to create intuitive-thinking.

Air/thinking merges with earth/sensing to create empiric-thinking.

Water/feeling merges with fire/intuition to create intuitive-feeling.

Water/feeling merges with earth/sensing to create sensory-feeling.

Pisces is a Water sign … but Astrologers tell us that Pisces people are intuitive-feeling types. Why is Pisces related to intuition, fire? This immediately makes sense if we place Pisces on this background diagram in the section marked water where it merges with fire.

HERE

What if we put all of the signs of the Zodiac in places that fit their known attributes? Then the diagram looks like this.

Air

Earth Fire

Water

Each of these signs have a logical reason

behind their placing but this is only a short

introduction.

For a full description see

The Pattern of the Elements.

Intuitive IDEA!

If this new positioning of the signs (according to their psychological qualities) makes real sense it should reflect order in other ways.

How about if we see how the Sun would progress around this new layout in the course of a year?

We could call it THE ZODIAC TEST.

00 ARIES

The Sun moves around the Earth against the

background Zodiac like this ..

… beginning with the spring equinox, 00 Aries, we can apply this progression to the signs we have placed on The Philosopher’s Stone. The Sun’s path around the Earth is

pictured on the right.

THE ZODIAC

TEST

Here is Aries (intuitive-thinking)

on the Philosopher’s Stone diagram.

So here we go – From Aries to Taurus…

From Taurus to Gemini …

From Gemini to Cancer …

From Cancer to Leo …

From Leo to Virgo …

From Virgo to Libra …

From Libra to Scorpio …

From Scorpio to Sag …

From Sag to Capricorn …

From Capricorn to Aquarius …

- to Pisces …

… and back to Aries.

THIS IS IT! Of the many ways these points could be connected very few create symmetry and half of those are the same pattern upside down. I think that we can say that THE ZODIAC TEST has been a success.

So .. if we now stand this result on it’s points we are back with Jung’s original diagram of The Philosopher's Stone.

+

Look … this pattern is biologically significant - it displays bilateral symmetry. Bilateral symmetry came about because of an evolutionary momentous change that occurred in DNA. Ever since the first worm appeared in the Cambrian era birds, mammals, insects, and plants display bilateral symmetry.

And what is going on here! These Bilateral Pairs have lined up in an uncannily logical way.

4 5

This is the primal duo, the creative Leo SUN and the receptive Cancer MOON, they symbolise Father and Mother. Together

they generate a child.

I called the child LIFE.

12 Mysticism

Philosophy 9 SOURCE

Mysticism and Philosophy, Pisces (Neptune) and Sagittarius (Jupiter) were both traditionally ruled by Jupiter. Here we are looking at a wet, warm (water + fire) environment. The psychologist Stan Groff writes: ‘undisturbed intrauterine life is synonymous with Pisces’ ruling planet Neptune’. Sag’s ruling planet Jupiter stands for expansion and development.

Stanislav Grof, Beyond The Brain, State University of New York Press, 1985.

LIFE

Out of the SOURCE (the womb) LIFE is born into the world. And here it is?

Rising from the SOURCE the next pair finds us back with LIFE.

8 Death

Birth 1

TIME

Scorpio and Aries, both originally ruled by Mars, symbolise Birth and Death. Mars also means war, which conjures up images of death, while Pluto, Scorpio’s new ruling planet, means ‘regeneration’. Every moment is born out of the death of the previous moment. Born into LIFE we are presented with constant changes that we call TIME …

space

tim

eAgain … look at this! Everything comes together at this point. The diagram on the right is Herman Minkowski’s space-time model (Minkowski was Einstein’s tutor). It displays a past time cone and a future time cone and between the two is the point he calls ‘the present’.

PAST

FUTURE

‘The Present’.

NOW is ‘a point’, ‘consisting of nothing …

incomprehensible by thought.’

‘The mandala first comes into consciousness as an impressive point or dot’, says the Tractatus Aureus (Aion, p. 32) This point ‘being nothing and consisting of nothing, becomes a ‘certain magnitude incomprehensible by thought’, says Hyppolitus (Aion, p.199).

Is this the ‘point’ they mean?

2 Physical Beauty

Theoretical 7 BeautyFORM

FORM incarnates out of the moment in TIME, both physical and theoretical form – memories, concepts, words, music,

drawings, this floor, this body, you, me … EVERYTHING!

Intellectual 3

6 Practical

WORK

Practical Virgo and intellectual Gemini provide the skills we need to accomplish something, to WORK. Out of the un-conscious, born of the moment in TIME, something takes on a FORM that we can grasp, that we can consciously work with. Gemini is concerned with dexterity and communication and Virgo rules craftsmen and libraries. Here ideas are disseminated and shared.

10 Business

Science 11

WEALTH

WORK brings into being property, authority, status, even identity. Here, at the top, is the place of honour and of government; I gave it the title WEALTH.

‘As Chronos castrated Ouranus, so astrologically

does Saturn cut off the creative impulse and

potency of Ouranus. This image encapsulates the

basic war in all our psyches’.

Howard Sassportas,

The Gods of Change, 1989.

‘The astrological Uranus is perceived as being

perpetually engaged in a struggle with Saturn

Kronos, aiming to break restricting barriers. …This

battle of the gods is an innate living pattern in all

our psyches …’

Haydn Paul, Revolutionary Spirit.

The old ruling planet of Aquarius is Saturn but the new ruler is Uranus – the planet discovered by William Herschel in Bath. Astrologers understand that Saturn/Chronos and Uranus/Ouranus are always at war. The top position on this model, WEALTH, is inherently unstable.

‘… to see the world and grasp it as paradoxical, we must break with our familiar acceptance of it … and from the break we can learn nothing but the unmotivated upsurge of the world’.

Merleau Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, xv.

Here we see how the upward flow breaks up at the top, WEALTH, and returns to the SOURCE.

I gave these bisymmetric pairs the title

‘Complementary Connections’.

‘Complementary’ means

to make complete.

Each of these connections describe the yin-yang, negative-positive, mass-energy, space-time expression of a single phenomenon, e.g. Sun-ruled creative Leo supplies a constant supply of energy while Moon-ruled receptive Cancer offers the materials and container within, and with which, physical life is constructed and continually regenerated. Mercury-ruled, positive Gemini, supplies the concepts, the ideas, while Mercury-ruled, negative Virgo, allows for the physical expression and collection of these ideas (Virgo rules libraries).

10 11

COMPLEMENTARY CONNECTIONS

SOURCE

WEALTH

LIFE

WORK

FORM

TIME

12 9

4

6 3

7

1

5

8

2

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

_

_

_

_

_

Anyone familiar with the Chinese oracle the I Ching will recognise these six lines as the six lines of a hexagram.

On the right (the positive signs) the six lines of The Creative –

on the left (the negative signs) the six lines of The Receptive.

Matching up the signs with the lines is productive. Try it.

Levity

Gravity

AIR and FIRE

EARTH and WATER

Earth is the only planet we have yet discovered in which the four elements, earth/air/fire/water, exist independently and in large quantities. The philosopher’s stone symbolises the Anima Mundi, it means Living World or World Mind.

Because it describes conditions on Planet Earth I began to call this new alignment of the signs –

THE EARTH ALIGNMENT

We are ALL OF US generated out of the elements of our mother planet.

Earth and Water make up our physical being, our blood and, as Shakespeare noted, our flesh: this is the chemistry of our being. Fire and Air, heat and oxygen, supply the energy with which we think and act – the physics of our being.

But Mother Earth does not exist all on her own. Traditionally she is the female component of a divine duo.

Her consort is Heaven.

andHEAVEN

Mother Earth

Space-timeOur Home Planet provides us with all the materials we need to construct bodies.

(The Receptive Earth).

It is her movement within the encompassing heaven that instigate the changes we call

‘time’.

(The Creative Heaven).

It is time that ‘creates’ conditions that allow us to ‘Evolve’.

This is the map that we have constructed to keep tabs on Earth’s constantly changing surroundings. It is called the Zodiac. The Sun Moon and planets act as hands.

Remember

we have already utilised this familiar

model to test the arrangement of signs on The Philosopher’s

Stone.

THE ZODIA

C

The Complementary Connections are also displayed on the Zodiac (though in a different order). THEY MUST BE IMPORTANT!

This is called The Ptolemaic Order.

When the great Claudius Ptolemy was alive they only knew of seven planets so the signs had to share. Only Cancer and Leo had a planet of their own.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

It was the invention of the telescope that allowed us to discover Uranus. With this discovery Aquarius gained a ruling planet of its own that reflected its meaning more precisely. Uranus, planet of enlightenment, invention and discovery, discovered in 1781, brought revolution to all walks of life. The new power was electricity. Collective ideas were de rigour: freedom, brotherhood and equality. This is the positive yang pole of the connection WEALTH and GOVERNMENT.

Neptune gave us drugs and film – the new power was gas. Neptune has power over our unconscious, our emotions. This is the negative yin pole complementary connection SOURCE.

Pluto gave us crude oil, depth psychology. It brought nuclear power which gave birth to plutonium, and we REALISED the idea of relative TIME.

We looked at our first picture of Earth from space in 1961. Astrologers believe that each time a new planet is seen we take a momentous EVOLUTIONARY step into our future.

For more information see ‘The Pattern of Evolution’.

And here is another surprise! If you follow the dates the new ruler’s were first seen you can see another pattern that nobody has notice before, this time it is on the Zodiac.

Uranus 1781

Neptune 1846

1930 Pluto

Earth 1961

1977 Chiron

Let’s see what happens if we continue this pattern through the other signs beginning with the Sun and the Moon - The Primal Pair.

Sun ruler of Leo.

Moon ruler of Cancer.

Mercury ruler of Gemini.

Venus ruler of Libra.

Mars ruler of Aries.

Jupiter, ruler of Sag.

Saturn, ruler of Capricorn.

Uranus, new ruler of Aquarius.

Discovered in 1781

Neptune, new ruler of Pisces.

Discovered 1846

Pluto, new ruler of Scorpio.

Discovered in 1930

Earth, new ruler of Taurus. First seen 1961

Chiron, possible new ruler of Virgo

(plus asteroids between Jupiter and

Mars – all those words). Discovered

1977

IS THIS IT?

THE PATTERN OF EVOLUTION

And what about this!Yes, it looks like DNA. It doesn’t ONLY look like DNA it is

arranged structurally like DNA !

DNA consists of a double string of simple molecules called bases. There are only four bases; these are adenine, A, guanine, G, thiamine, T and cytosine, C. The Pattern of Evolution is made up of four elements; these are Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. In DNA the base adenine always links with thiamine and the base guanine always links with cytosine. This is reflected by the pattern on the Earth Alignment. Earth always links with Air, Water always links with Fire.

I discovered the first Pattern in 1984, by 1986 I had a collection. A friend said, ‘why don’t you draw up a chart with them all on the same page’.

It was a good idea.

The next slide is a copy of the original hand drawn chart. On the left you see the old Zodiac - a map of Heaven. Point 00 Aries marks the crossing of two major celestial equatorial fields, the Earth’s and the Sun’s.

On the right the new Earth Alignment.

Deeply interested in the Chinese philosophy of Daoism at the time, I called them ..

Patterns of the Tao.

?

You can see there is a missing pattern where I have put the question mark.

I decided to make up for this by drawing the same order of planets you see on the Zodiac

onto the new Earth Alignment.

?

You will be used to this by now.

So, Here it is.

I drew it up on the diagram and I called it the Pattern of Evolution II … OBVIOUSLY…

because it was the pair to Evolution I.

It had two triangles just like the Earth Alignment – it also had two unaccountable wings.

I HADN’T GOT A CLUE

WHAT IT MEANT!

wingwing

Forebrain

Limbic System

Cerebellum Core brain

cerebrum

Left

Hemisphere

Right

Hemisphere

Did he

say

WIN

GS !

… Until I read a book by Ronald Shone

about autohypnosis which mentioned the

two wings of the cerebral cortex.

The question was obvious. Is this a Map of the Brain?

Left Right

Forebrain

Limbic System

Cerebellum Core brain

cerebrum

Right Left

I knew the positions and the meanings of the symbols so I began to study the brain.

Here is the new Pattern of Evolution II drawn to cover the whole sign. It looks suspiciously familiar.

According to this model the brain has two hemispheres because it is comprehending (maybe even - like a TV set – receiving and constructing) a space-time environment.

Left Right

XX marks the spot.

Xhypothalamus

corpus callosum

medullaoblongata

pons

cerebellum

temporallobes

frontal lobes

occipital lobes

spinalis

X

I thought that it was interesting that the spinal chord, supplying information from the body about present conditions, attached to the brain at that magic point NOW. The visual nerves cross at this point too carrying information from the eyes to the occipital lobes at the back (astrological Neptune rules film and Jupiter recognises pattern). You can see the primal symbols the Sun and Moon mark the cerebellum, the primitive part of the brain.

Do you remember the complementary connections? Astrology informs us that Mercury rules communication and hands. This is the Motor Cortex and complementary connection WORK.

Motor Cortex

SOMATOTOPICAL MAP showing Right Motor

Cortex.

WORK

The Left Motor Cortex mirrors the Right.

GEMINI

Mercury

And this is the Somatosensory Cortex. On the left, Taurus Venus is sensual. She is also connected with opera singers. On the right, Libra Venus is erotic, she also symbolises harmony beauty and balance. Notice the pharynx and genitals on the somatotopical map of the somatosensory cortex. This is the complementary connection FORM.

FORM

Somatosensory Cortex

The Right Somatosensory Cortex mirrors the Left

These are homunculi – you can see them in Oxford at The British Museum of Natural History. Sensual, sexy, Venus is on the left and dexterous, talkative, Mercury is on the right. It was these models that suggested to me that the ancient gods are metaphors for specific regions of the brain. We have only recently learnt how to see the brain in operation – previously our brains could only communicate with us using metaphor.

This is a page from Clive Wearing's Diary. It is printed in Colin Blakemore’s, The Mind Machine, BBC Books, 1988.

Clive suffered from a damaged Hippocampus. The hippocampus is a part of the forebrain – the part of our model that is ruled by Saturn and Uranus.

Astrologers tell us that Saturn demands Patience’ and Uranus is the awakener! .. Is this coincidence - or what?

Empiric-thinking

MIND

Intuitive–feeling

HEART

Saturn = patience

Uranus = awake

Here is the forebrain on our model. The forebrain is equated by brain specialists with MIND.

The Sun and Moon in astrology symbolise the Heart (the Sun) and the Instincts (the Moon).

HEART and MIND

This is picture of Old Father Time, Greek Kronos/Chronos, Roman Saturn. He is devouring one of his children. (We are all devoured by time). The words Chronological, Chronic and Old Cronies derive from the name of this god.

Saturn’s mother was Gaia, Earth. He is usually pictured with the scythe that he used to cut off his father Uranus’ genitals. To be fair to Saturn, Uranus, god of rebellion, revolution, and sudden disruptive change was an irresponsible father and Saturn is responsible to the point of absurdity. Regulation and control are Saturnian words.

I had given up hope that anyone would ever take an interest in this model when something happened that reawakened my own dormant sense of responsibility.

I understand the conflicting nature of these archetypes because when I was born Uranus was conjunct Saturn at the noon point in the heavens.

It was 2007 and I was watching Michio Kaku’s BBC 4 programme ‘Time’. Michio went to Duke university where Dr Meek was conducting MRI scans in order to determine the position of, what he called, the brain’s ‘chronological’ clock.

So what symbol does an astrologer connect with Chronos, time?

YES Saturn.

Check this out …

Warren Meek proves there is a part of the brain which keeps track of time’. Michio is saying – ‘Oh look at this – is this the chronological clock in my brain?’ And Warren

Meek answers, very assertively, ‘Yes’.

time1bbc 4 docu clip.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/bbcfour/media/time1b?size=16x9&bgc=C0C0C0&nbram=1&bbram=1BBC 4 TV docuclip HTLM Doc Documentary Michio Kaku TIME.

Where is Saturn on our model? Yes .. the frontal lobe.

So how did the ancients know to call the philosopher’s stone World Mind?

PERHAPS, if this model has any grounding in truth, then our brains, as part of the Anima Mundi (the total intelligent living experience), is in communication, perhaps through the intuitive-feeling SOURCE -even though the modern, empiric-thinking, scientific, mechanistic paradigm would find this idea difficult to accommodate.

If you have ever consulted the ancient Chinese oracle the I Ching you will know that it offers inexplicable but intelligent responses to questions.

How does this happen?

tRNA

‘Clover-leaf Structure’.

Pattern of Evolution I

Pattern of Evolution II

Mitochondrial DNA

This so called ‘Clover Leaf Structure’ is a picture of tRNA, transfer RNA, I copied this from a great little book called DNA for Beginners. The pink thing is my attempt at drawing an amino acid.

One last correlation. The pattern of evolution resembles the symbol used by geneticists that represents mitochondrial

DNA – the DNA that is responsible for the energy in

every living cell.

RNA is the adapter molecule that converts the DNA alphabet into protein. Each of these separate bits of tRNA carry one of the amino acids needed to construct a protein that goes to making up you and me.

As the messenger DNA shunts its messages through a ribosome, individual tRNA drop off their same-message cargo and build cells.

Is planet Earth a ‘sort of’ ribosome and, if individual brains are ‘a sort’ of tRNA what is it that we are making?

I am only asking.

AMINO ACID

So, after this very brief introduction, do you think this model might be worth researching?

Last year I tried to get into the Cambridge Brain Unit (CBU) to subject it to rigorous scientific examination but I was turned down. I wasn’t surprised. I would have been surprised to get in!

Have you got the expertise, equipment, qualifications, talent or training that might help give this seemingly cosmic madness the serious scrutiny and exposure I believe it deserves.

If you have please get in touch.

… and, lastly,

thank you

for giving up your time.

© Chrissy Philp