chartingthesoul.com

THE ARCHETYPES AS 'EIDOS'

The other day I gave a teaching on the astrological archetypes. Like many astrologers, I help people understand the nature of the planets by telling the myths and the stories associated with the Greek gods. Today I listened to a recording of the session. At first, I was just casually listening from an analytical head space but when the story-telling began I suddenly noticed that my whole way of listening had changed. Even though it was my own familiar voice that I was hearing - something else was starting to happen. Without any conscious effort, my higher sense perception had woken up. I became aware that I could feel currents moving through my human energy field, currents that came from the living, active presence of the archetypal energies of the gods and goddesses, the heroes and heroines of the story.

The realm of the archetypes lies beneath our everyday thinking and it requires a shift of consciousness to access that level. When we enter into the presence of the archetypes then we awaken to a transformational realm where we find new understanding, new possibilities, an expanded state of awareness.

Sitting here at my computer, I am wondering, "What just happened, what is occurring when I sense this mysterious connection?" I am a double Aquarius, and the astrologers among my readers will understand that I always enjoy it when I notice something that makes a bridge between science and spirituality. Here goes...

The physicist David Bohm theorised that we live in a 'holographic universe' i.e. that the world of our human experience of space, time and causal events is like a holographic projection emerging from a deeper level of existence. The "explicate, unfolded order" of our human experience emerges from the "implicate, enfolded order", an underlying dimension in which an entirely different arrangement of things exists. That is to say, this vast "implicate order" is the ground from which our reality emerges.
The concept of archetypes goes right back to the early Greek philosopher Plato who spoke of the "eidos" - pure mental forms that he thought were imprinted on the soul before it was born into the world. It seems to me that Plato's "eidos" and Bohm's "implicate order" are connected. Thus, in our encounters with the archetypes, they lead us beyond the "explicate order" of our familiar world towards the underlying realm of the "implicate order".

Bohm's theory provides an explanation for the puzzle of Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance' - the fact that particles separated by vast distances can remain in instantaneous connection. The idea that things remain in some way connected even when separated by distance is also the explanation for energy healing. Bohm developed his theory of the "implicate, enfolded order" using objective, logical, complex, mathematical formulae. And, as a healer, I am saying that we can find our own personal doorway to a lived experience of this dimension through a subjective, non-rational, intuitive, shift of awareness. This experience cannot be achieved through mental analysis. In fact, it requires the ability to bring a halt to mental activity, to find stillness, to slide through the silence between the dimensions. It always entails a step into the unknown, always a willingness to surrender to whatever awaits.

In the Greek myths, the Gods and Goddesses are often described as hostile, fickle and merciless in their dealings with mortal beings. We humans are inclined to try to get through life without acknowledging our connection to the archetypes, to the non-physical worlds of spirit. This leaves us very alone and in childhood, as a coping mechanism, we try to gain protection by forming a little crust, a shell around the terrifying truth of our extreme vulnerability. But inside our shells, in our own essence, we are not separate from the archetypes, they are the 'eidos', elements of soul, living at the core of us. The archetypes seek consciousness and when they emerge from the place beneath then the eggshell gets broken.

Into every life, sooner or later a moment arrives when the Gods make their entry bringing a time of crisis, difficult choices, breakdown, loss. Someone dies, we suddenly find ourselves without a job, without a partner, or we get seriously ill. We dread these moments and I have experienced too many of them myself to underestimate the pain of those dark times. Yet they are the substance of all our stories and it is often these times of personal crisis that bring about awakening. In our struggles with adversity we search for a deeper awareness, engage with the essence of the archetype and this is a doorway that can lead us directly into the presence of Spirit.

It is paradoxical. When the archetypes make a forced entry into everyday life they seem relentless and cruel. Yet it is also true that when we meet them with expanded consciousness and sink down towards the depths of the implicate order then we discover the archetypes as beings of immense beauty, power and the harbingers of Love. My personal experience of making many journeys into the archetypal realm is of being welcomed into the presence of benign conscious beings, immensely powerful, immensely loving spiritual life forms; of entering into another dimension of consciousness in which Love is the only reality.

More and more, these days, I am feeling that my work as an energy healer and facilitator of consciousness is to be a guide to those wanting to make that sacred journey to the world of the archetypes and beyond, into the presence of Spirit.

"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

1 Corinthians 13:2-7

©Rebekah Hirsch 2019