Swedenborgian Community

Wake on Dole's Hologram

  This reminded him of the Blake  poem:

To see the world in a grain of Sand

The universe in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand

And Eternity in an Hour.

 

            He wrote that he was coming to see Swedenborg’s theology as “composed of a central holographic concept entering a matrix of pietistic Lutheranism.”[2]  He was eager to share this view while it was still plastic, and hoped that it would always remain plastic in our conversations.

            One format he utilized for sharing this viewpoint was the Fryeburg New Church Assembly lectures in 1984.  He told the campers that scientists sometimes use models of things they can see to understand something they can’t see.  For physicist Karl Pribram, the hologram was such a model showing that “every part is a miniature of the whole.”[3]

            Dole indicated that he was especially intrigued by the laser that is used as a light source for the hologram.  The film records the “inference pattern of two sets of waves.”  That rang a bell for Dole; “Swedenborg’s apparent fascination with influx, both mediate and immediate, and with actives and passives.”[4] Like many others, he had wondered “just what it is that inflows.  Swedenborg strongly implies (cf. D.L.W. 88) that no substance actually moves from one discrete level to another, so we shouldn’t think of influx as being like a river in any literal way.  It seems to make sense, then, to think of influx in terms of wave motion.”[5]  Physicists have determined that matter has both particle properties and wave properties.

            Dole then said, probably with great emphasis:  “I’m suggesting that we take our own wave properties seriously, using as a guide our basic theological understandings of influx.” [6]

            Dole’s plasticity was also clear in the article he had in Continuing Vision.  He quotes Pribram  as having said in an interview: “’Man was made in the image of God.’  Spiritual insights fit the description of this domain. They’re made perfectly plausible by the invention of the hologram.”[7]

            Dole saw this as a clear bridge between the physical and the spiritual – including the divine.  This would allow the viewing of Swedenborg with a new lens.

            He returned to his theme of the intersecting nature of reality.  A particularly poignant passage is this one he cites from Heaven and Hell:

            “Further, in regard to the union of heaven with the human race, it should be realized that the Lord himself is flowing into every individual according to heaven’s design – into the individual’s most inward and most outward [aspects] alike. … The former inflow of the Lord is called direct inflow, while the other inflow, which happens to means of spirits, is called indirect inflow …”[8]

            George noted that  together these two flows are striking in terms of the hologram.  “We are constituted by the intersection of two flows – one direct, from the divine, and one indirect, from the divine via our environment.  We can view ourselves as interference patterns, because the inflow is a 2 wave phenomenon, and we are where the waves meet.” [9]

            So Pribram’s sense of a connection between the wave properties and the divine brings us into the center of Swedenborgian theology.

             Dole moves into the area of consciousness when he says that there is no such thing as a purely subjective or purely objective perception.  “Consciousness itself is an intersection of subjective and objective flows, so that Heisenberg’s indeteminacy principle, insisting that the observer affects the observation, comes as no surprise.”[10]  He notes the complexity this brings to human life:  “What is most distinctly ‘mine,’ what I ‘have’ or perceive that you do not, is whatever is flowing into me directly from within.  In theological terms, it is whatever the Lord chooses to give me.  Paradoxically, then, given the divine constancy, what is most profoundly ‘mine’ is exactly the same as what is most profoundly ‘yours.’”

            Dole notes that this has considerable implications for the meaning of boundaries. .”…our finiteness consists less in our having absolute boundaries than in our inability to function without boundaries.”[11]   So, he concludes that  “matter, then, is not discrete  keeping and solid, it is simply viscous.  It is our  consciousness that is keeping our bodies distinct from the rest of the landscape. “[12]

            This takes him into the realm of ethics:   “The central implication of the holographic model in the area of ethics is both simple and radical.  If I am a microcosm of the whole, this has consequences for my entire concept of the self-other relationship.  The only ‘you’ I know is the ‘you’ within my consciousness.  I do indeed love my neighbor as I love myself, and vice versa, because my neighbor participates in my being.”[13]

            He also adds that  “every polarity that exists in the world exists within me.”[14]  He therefore comes to an astounding realization:  “In the holographic model, doing [anything] on the personal scale and doing it on the global scale are inseparable.”[15]

            George Dole has been able to make such significant progress in the meaning of influx by his willingness to allow quantum physics to inform his understanding of Swedenborg.  He wrote:

            “Attention to the wave properties of  matter, and to the holographic model in particular, highlights elements of Swedenborg’s theology that have often hitherto seemed elusive, and which therefore have not been brought to bear effectively on the situations in which we commonly find ourselves. … [the hologram] calls attention to aspects of our inner and outer relationships that we normally ignore and that offer promise of progress towards a peaceful way of living on all scales; from the very private to the global.”[16]

            He offered this summary of this conclusions in Sorting Things Out:  “the fact of the hologram enables us to lift out of the mass of Swedenborg’s theological corpus a consistent theme centering in the image of intersecting flows.” [17]  In another chapter of the same book, he added:  “In a sense then perhaps the central ethical import of the Swedenborgian version of the  holographic model is to point to the possibility of moving beyond the need to define ourselves loves by excluding others, which for me gives a particular clarity to the injunction that I love my neighbor as myself.” [18]

            Dole has now moved the conversation clearly into the realm of consciousness and human interaction. 

 

 

THE HOLOGRAM AND HOLOMOVEMENT  AS USED BY TODAY’S TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGISTS

 

 

            With Dole’s work on the ethical realities of living our lives with a “wave” consciousness, he moved into the realm of transpersonal psychology.

            George has now pointed us towards transpersonal psychology as the next major conversation we Swedenborgians need to have.  Dole’s work has not gone into significant detail about the transpersonal connection, so it would be appropriate here to review how the realm of psychology has been intersecting with the holographic model of quantum physics.

 

            Questions about the relationship between quantum physics and transpersonal psychology have been debated in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology since its inception in 1969.  Pribram and Bohm, whose physics had a profound impact on Dole’s understanding of Swedenborg, began participating in forums with those who were starting the new Association for Transpersonal Psychology.

            Pribram was part of a conversation with Jacob Needleman in 1978 in which they probed the practical realities of living with quantum consciousness. This conversation put forth the same ethical questions that were intriguing Dole.  Needleman asked:  “What would be the role of an idea, like a holographic idea, in actually activating a different way of life?  When Buddha came with the idea, or Christ came with Christian formulation of the idea that the personality or the ego is not ultimately real, it didn’t seem that more than a few people were able to bring that idea into their own tissues, into their blood, and their life. The problem is … how to incarnate that idea in my actual life so that I am transformed in the light of that idea.”[19]

            This is the question that Dole takes to Swedenborg, and finds that his approach to charity [compassion] start to provide us a roadmap for a holographic life.

            By 1979, David Bohm was moving beyond the hologram, and was talking about holomovement.  He engaged in a conversation with John Welwood in an intriguing article titled:  “Issues in Physics, Psychology, and Metaphysics:  A Conversation.”  The article began with the crucial statement:  “Parallels between the findings of modern physics and new perspectives in psychology have been a frequent theme in the transpersonal literature. … The present conversation was an attempt to investigate these parallels and to consider problems that might result from relying on physics and the holographic model in particular for psychological theory.”[20]

            The article pointed out that Bohm’s work in theoretical physics has made an important contribution to work in  neuropsychology, consciousness research, and similar endeavors.  This is particularly true in terms of Bohm’s use of implicate versus explicate. The word implicate refers to “an order of undivided wholeness where many elements are holistically compressed or enfolder together.”[21]  Bohm indicates that an enfolded order could unfold “as an explicate order of discrete separate elements.”[22] This perspective seems to be further elaboration of influx that comes from two levels.

            Welwood  noted that he has been quite struck by the way in which Bohm’s concept of “an implicate order in physics echoes the finding of phenomenological psychology that specific thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the world manifest and express underlying and holistic kinds of knowing.”[23]    He points out to Bohm that his idea of an implicate order in physics could be an analogy for a “deeper order of mind.  It is hard to find words for these deeper orders of mind.  The term ‘big mind’ lumps many things together, namely, everything that is beyond what we can talk about, but which we can still know, intuit, or realize in some way, if only in little glimpses.  It is something like what you mean by ‘implicate order,’ but it  also points to a fertile ‘emptiness,’ an open dimension that goes beyond any thought forms, either implicit or explicit.”[24]

            Bohm responded to Welwood that “that is what is implicit in the implicate order, which cannot be made explicit at all.  The energy which moves between the explicate and implicate orders is still further inward.  It is the force which brings about the unfolding of the implicate.  You see, we have the explicate order and the implicit order, and the movement from one to the other – which is holomovement.”[25]

            Welwood clarifies this concept by asking if this holomovement is that which is moving between the implicate and explicit.  Bohm’s answer is quite significant.  He agrees with Welwood, but also clarifies that holomovement is more inward than either of two extremes.  “And beyond all this is that emptiness and fullness which is entirely implicit, which cannot be uttered.”[26]  So Welwood notes that this means there is something beyond the implicate order which is “entirely implicit.”[27]  Bohm agrees, noting that if something is implicit, that you can say something about it.  But there is the “ultimate ground of being” which cannot be uttered.[28]

            As this conversation continues, Welwood asks a central question of Bohm.  “What do you think about the boundaries between disciplines now, especially between physics and psychology?”[29]  Bohm comments that psychology has always been impacted by physics.  Classical physics caused psychology to look at separate egos and their interaction.  The new understanding of the implicate order gives a more solid grounding for transpersonal psychology.  He suggests that psychology itself might further develop concepts of  “order” that better fit with new psychological understandings.

            The conversation than moves into the arena of ethics that Dole has considered.  Bohm says:  “We say we want to change society, but if all the things that are going on around us are only the manifestations of the ground of society, what is this ground itself?  The world of society is primarily the outcome of this deep layer of consciousness.  Only when that is touched will society change.  When that is touched, you touch the whole consciousness of mankind.” [30]   

            As the conversation draws to a close, Welwood asks about the current interest in holograms.  Bohm re-iterates that the concept is too limited, because in order to create a hologram, one must have a fixed object. The  hologram is only a particular way of arranging particles.  However, the holomovement may be fundamental; the ultimate ground.  “…there is ultimately no hologram because a hologram is static.  We can say the world is holomovement, and beyond that is the unutterable, entirely implicit ground.”[31]  

            Welwood notes that this makes the hologram more of a metaphor.  Perhaps we Swedenborgians could consider it correspondence. Bohm says that hologram is not only static , but it leaves out “the higher dimensional nature of reality…”[32]  They realize in this conversation that they are moving into the realm of “metaphysics”.  It is beyond physics and deals with the ultimate nature of reality.

        The concept of what boundaries actually exist and what they mean have also been explored in the arena of transpersonal psychology. In 1977, this issue was addressed in the journal by Robert M. Anderson, Jr., in “A Holographic Model of Transpersonal Consciousness.”  Anderson noted  that there are two kinds of consciousness:  personal and transpersonal or unitive.[33]   This again reminds us of Dole’s work on external and internal, as the two types of influx. Anderson sees the hologram as being able to bridge the gap between personal and transpersonal.   He notes:  “David Bohm attempts to answer this question by postulating that the structure of the universe is holographic, with its entire explicate structure encoded in its every part.  Since the whole of the universe is enfolded in every subregion, Bohm claims that there exists a further  order.  In addition to the explicit order,   the order of multiplicity, there exists the implicate order, the order of undivided wholeness.”[34]

            Anderson says that Bohm’s explicate and implicate order correspond to personal and transpersonal consciousness.  The world “correspond” is one of particular interest to us.  Dole’s work began looking at the hologram as a model for Swedenborg; it can perhaps be probed even more deeply as we look at correspondences between Love and Wisdom and the implicit and explicit orders; as well as transpersonal vs. personal consciousness.

This is a significant area for further exploration.   It suggests that our Swedenborg’s influx and his concept of  Love and Wisdom may be able to explain the deeper levels of consciousness being discussed by the transpersonal psychology movement.

          Dole has noted that Bohm extends this concept even deeper by looking at the brain itself.    Researchers have been attempting to understand how the brain stores memory and how that memory is distributed in the brain.  Some brain theorists are postulating that the brain may be a hologram, so that each part contains the memory of the whole.  Researchers are probing even more deeply into the brain to determine what takes place when one is having an experience of unitive consciousness.  Researchers have determined that alpha and theta waves are particularly prominent at such times.  This allows the brain to be less active.  “It is at this point that resonance can take place between the brain’s explicit holographic structure and the implicate holographic structure.”[35]

            Anderson further notes that when an individual experiences implicate consciousness, it is not the individual who is experiencing it.  “When transpersonal consciousness is experienced, the individual self ‘falls away’ as personal consciousness resonates to and merges with the universe and the implicate order.”[36]

            Anderson concludes his article by noting:  “Our account of the holographic resonance model has combined Bohm’s version of the ‘new’ physics, the hologram theory of the brain, and an account of the relation between personal and transpersonal consciousness.  Though this approach is highly speculative, it does pull together some new and seemingly disparate realms of knowledge and experience.”[37]  We Swedenborgians might note that this is an irresistible mix for us to jump into!  As we bring our influx and our Love and Wisdom into this conversation, we will enrich the field of transpersonal psychology, as well as giving us a deep, modern understanding of the full meaning of some basic Swedenborgian concepts.

It would be useful for us to note how the transpersonal movement sees the development of the term transpersonal.  Miles Vitch has done some intriguing historical research for The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. It is intriguing for us Swedenborgians to note that the two sources he found for the term transpersonal  are Carl Jung and William James.  In 1917, Jung used the German word:  ueberpersonlich in the German edition of Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology.  An authorized translation translated it as superpersonal.  Later translations used transpersonal.  In one of Jung’s revision of his The Psychology of the Unconscious [in 1942], he used the chapter heading:  “The Personal and the Collective (or Transpersonal) Unconscious.”    His text included:  “We have to distinguish between a personal unconscious and an impersonal or transpersonal unconscious.  We speak of the latter also as the collective unconscious…”[38]

Vich also notes that William James may have used the term for the first time in the English language.  In a course syllabus he used as Harvard, he  had:  “Trans-personal -as when my object is also your object.”[39]

Given the influence of Swedenborg on Jung and James, this gives us even further license to claim the confluence of Swedenborg’s writings and the current work in transpersonal psychology.

 

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR CONVERSATIONS

 

            Dole has shown us our legitimacy in the dialog with transpersonal psychology.  A number of researchers and clinicians connected with our church are taking this discussion into new arenas through their publications.   They include Stephen Larson, Rachel Martin,  Carolyn Blackmer,  Eugene Taylor, and Wilson Van Dusen.[40]  Countless others who live by Swedenborgian concepts are discussing and utilizing these concepts in their lives.  We have amongst us many who are delving into the transpersonal as psychotherapists, pastoral counselors, spiritual directors, teachers, and parish ministers.

            In the honoring of George Dole, who so clearly put us into the hologram, let’s find ways to enhance this conversation  amongst ourselves.  Let us engage each other in dialog about how we live out the concepts of hologram and holomovement in our lives and our work. We must claim our rightful place on the stage of the unfolding transpersonal movement as we also utilize the learnings of the transpersonalists in our own efforts to live by Swedenborg’s teachings.

 

            So, in summary, George, has assured us that the hologram of quantum physics demonstrates Swedenborg’s concept of influx.  George’s work on the realities of  living a holographic life take us into the realms of transpersonal psychology, where the hologram is having a tremendous impact. 

.

 

 

As we continue this dialog amongst ourselves and within the transpersonal movement, some particular areas for focus might include:

The holographic brain, and its implications for treating brain injuries

The concept of “boundaries” of self and others, and the implications for human interaction

Engagement with the larger world and the ethical implications for working towards a more peaceful world

Implications of the use of term “holomovement” to characterize the relationship between implicate and explicate [Love and Wisdom].

 

         For myself, I have been inspired by George to delve into the new physics and transpersonal psychology as ways of understanding Swedenborg more deeply.   However, it all becomes fuzzy as I find the point of ground where words lose all meaning.

In those times, there is only one thing that can fully help me integrate holographic understandings beyond words.

 

George,  where can I purchase a starfish hologram just like yours? Please do share this vital information, so that we can continue to understand and share your teachings.

     

 

 

 

 

 

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