The Enchantments of Life
this is from the book I am writing, not a final edit but it gives you a good introduction to the cohesive structure of my work.
The Enchantments of Life map of reality describes the way in which both individuals and human society as a whole evolves. Human evolution in the physical realm takes place within the context of consciousness expansion. The Enchantments of Life integrates the truth of the cyclical nature of existence with the progression of evolution. Life is cyclical and life grows within cycles. There is also a hierarchy of cycles—we do not merely go round and round on a flat plane, we move up to a higher turn of the spiral as we evolve.
The expansion of consciousness and the progress of evolution is the growth towards complexity; the ability to have an intimate relationship with more and more of reality. This process of emergence and manifestation unfolds in stages.
The Enchantments map describes the evolutionary emergence of complexity, however that does not mean that our true history is a gradual linear development. A study of archaeology and history reveals that certain elements of our consciousness and capability have in fact regressed. The pattern described by the Enchantments gives us the mode in which consciousness is impulsed to evolve, my work also looks to integrate the truth of advanced ancient civilizations as well considering the larger contextual truth of root races.
Although I do not have all of the answers, I do have a map which enables one to ask far better questions about human evolution as compared to the paradigms of conventional history, psychology, sociology and the populist integral movement
A Quick Overview of the Four Main Adult Enchantments
You are more than can be described by this model, but it does help you see the dynamics of the evolution of consciousness. All of these human elements in one form or another belong to us all. The more one understands the model, the less appropriate a superiority complex becomes.
Here I provide key words and concepts for each of the four main adult Enchantments that are prevalent now in the first world. We evolve from the Saturn Enchantment to the Pluto Enchantment.
Life is a theatre so come and enjoy the masquerade.
Saturn Enchantment
Key concepts:
Morality, law and order, black and white judgements, strictly disciplined, religion, social diplomacy, class system, protestant work ethic, hierarchy, sacrificing what the self desires to please others.
The individual conforms to rules and is subject to collective emotional boundaries that are derived from the evolutionary impulse to stabilize civilization.
Mechanistic emotions. Conventionality of cultural tradition. Knowing one’s place in the strict hierarchy. Fixed gender roles.
Seeking salvation and peace of mind through saving money, adherence to experts, following masters or transcending the karmic wheel.
Scripts:
“I serve my family/my nation/my culture/my religion with pride.”
“An honest day’s work.”
“Do as you’re told.”
“The salt of the Earth.”
“Be a good girl.”
“We ought to …”, “I should …”, “We need to …”, “We must …”
“Everybody knows that …”
“Poppycock!”
“In my day …”
“Mustn’t grumble (grumble, grumble).”
“Things aren’t what they used to be.”
“Mark my words!”
“Waste not, want not.”
Experience:
Peace–unease caused by ‘good/bad behaviour’ of self or others.
Stereotypes:
Religious, good citizen, academic, pillar of the community, wizened master, transcendental monk.
Uranus Enchantment
Key concepts:
Self-expression in the material world, winners and losers, market forces, relationships arise in the social marketplace (‘the pursuit’), strategically expressive, cool, keeping up with what’s hot, buzz words.
Individualism is revered, although there is a subconscious conformity to the ‘proven’ and ‘best’ methodology. The individual conforms to a morality based on affiliations with the ‘in crowd’ and is subject to the collective mind in its quest to progress. The evolutionary impulse is to rise above the limitations of tradition.
Formal mechanistic thinking. Reality is objective. The self seeks to overcome the randomness of nature and ‘make it happen’. Women compete with men and relationships are strategic.
Scripts:
“Life is speeding up and I want to be in the fast lane.”
“Make something of yourself.”
“Money makes the world go around.”
“… says more about you than money ever can.”
“Buy this and show the world you are an individual.”
“Spending time …”, “Wasting time …”, “Making time for …”
“Go for it!”
“What a weirdo.”
“He’s so interesting, what a brain!”
“I am making a big investment in this relationship.”
“What do I get out of this?”
“You only live once.”
“I am spent.”
Experience:
Excitement–disappointment; the adrenalin wave of drama.
Stereotypes:
The corporate, materialist, yuppie, business owner, scientist, celebrity, the sharp wit, the ‘glamour’ of the war correspondent.
Neptune Enchantment
Key concepts:
Idealistic, seeking agreement and equality, humanitarian, soul consciousness, feeling-based expression.
The individual conforms to strong principles. Nonhierarchical, antiestablishment and antiauthoritarian. Sensitive to peer-led ideals, shaped by authentic heart-centred individuals.
The self is subject to collective feelings that are impulsed by evolution to merge the past with the present, the past being that which has been overlooked and disconnected from during the establishment and progress of civilization.
Thinking is based on the relativity of all truth. Reality is spiritually based. Relationships come from destiny. Men recognize and own the feminine aspect within themselves.
Scripts:
“I feel connected to the soul of people and seek peace and harmony.”
“How do we feel about that?”
“Let’s talk about it.”
“Rage against the machine.”
“It’s not mine; I was given it by Spirit.”
“Love and Light.”
“I am processing.”
“Fair trade.”
“The reptilian banking elite...”
Experience:
Bliss–disillusionment; sensitivity.
Stereotypes:
Healer, astrologer, channeller, conspiracy theorist, hippy, idealistic dreamer, humanitarian, alternative.
Pluto Enchantment
Key concepts:
The acceptance and resolution of paradox. Openness and an enjoyment of life, even with its constant challenges and imperfections. Spontaneous, unpredictable, questioning, responsive.
The individual conforms to the will of the species and the evolutionary impulse of transformation. Autonomous but connected; not overly identified with religion, ideals, science or any group. Appreciates diversity of opinion and personal life experience. Drawn to novelty whilst valuing time-honoured truths that work for the self. Looks to escape boxes or laborious processing, arguments and nonproductive work.
Systemic thinking that recognizes the need to find the appropriate truth for each situation. Reality is change—life flows and stutters with necessary interruptions as it progresses. Emotional interdependence within relationships. Recognizes and accepts the paradoxes within the self and all human beings.
Scripts:
“I respond to life as it emerges.”
“Life is both fast and complex, but at any time I can choose to detach.”
“Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t.”
“I would like to think this improves the world in some small way.”
“Live and let live.”
“Systems on the edge of chaos.”
“Test the waters.”
“Every so often, you just have to let it all go; the world keeps turning anyway.”
Experience:
Fluctuating between freedom and alienation, isolation and involvement, engagement and detachment. Consciously experiences life’s continuous unfoldment.
Stereotypes:
Freelancer, consultant, someone who is a nonconformist without fuss.
Moving Beyond Cliché
The Enchantments of Life map attempts to describe the levels of perception, the experience of reality and the values and complexity of consciousness found within the individual that correspond with the collective unfoldment. The Enchantments of Life outlines evolution, history and cultural and social dynamics, as well as the adventure of discovery for any individual.
The map allows us to ask better questions about life, rather than providing cul de sacs of conclusion. While the experience of life is bigger than this map, the map enhances our experience. We cannot fully explain the playful spirit inherent within life, nor do the dynamics described by the Enchantments map fully reveal the essential magnetism and exchange of human relationships, which is where most of us feel the spark of life. However, as you will see, the Enchantments do open up the terrain to the magic and mystery of existence.
All these Enchantments, or levels of expression, are within us all, at least latently until we have become conscious on that level. At any one time, we each tend to have one dominant perception; our centre of gravity, our primary perspective. However, we operate upon multiple levels and, to some degree, can access higher levels than our primary one.
Each level emerges from the consciousness, experience and anchored biochemistry of the previous level. The stereotype listing is useful, but is not wholly definitive as the Enchantments map describes evolving levels within the psyche rather than strictly set personality types. Buddhists, Christians, academics, healers, alternative researchers, politicians, cultural critics, business magnates and scientists could be operating from a centre of gravity in Pluto Enchantment. In fact, from the Pluto Enchantment, stereotype roles are less obviously connected to a specific level of consciousness.
Take for example the Neptune Enchantment stereotype of the hippy. In the 1960s, the hippy movement was trendy, so a large number of those who appeared to be hippies were in fact in transition stage between Uranus and Neptune. The true Neptune Enchantment hippies did not rejoin the system and eventually become yuppies; rather, they continued to explore spirituality, consciousness, ecology and community. Some of those hippies from the 1960s did indeed have a more complex consciousness than that presented by the media. I would propose that many of yesteryear’s hippies did become pioneers of the emerging Pluto consciousness. The same could be said of the New Age and conspiracy movements today—not all will be centred in the Neptune Enchantment.
While my evolutionary map comes under the general area of study called ‘integral theory’, there are crucial differences between this and other integral systems. Later on I will explain why I use the word Enchantment and why I use planets to describe each level of reality. I will also talk about the experiences, inspirations and sources that led me to develop the Enchantments of Life and will compare this to models such as Ken Wilber’s Spectrum of Consciousness, Spiral Dynamics and those developed by Jean Gebser and Jean Piaget, amongst others.
The Enchantments of Life: Whole Map Overview
As we evolve, both individually and collectively, consciousness expands. This involves a growth towards complexity that comes with increased membership. Also, the emphasis oscillates from one Enchantment to the next between an external and an internal focus, between “I” and “We”.
Here is the complete list of the Enchantments in my model so you can see the four primary adult Enchantments within context and go a little bit deeper in your understanding. Think in terms of self and society; think in terms of the whole evolutionary history of humanity. We also have to consider cultural variants that can give each Enchantment a slightly different national flavour.
The unique essence of the individual is not compromised by these collective patterns; the self retains its sovereign mystery.
Dark Sun: Mythos
Quality and imperative: Falling into the dream within the dream. Life begins, ends and is forever taking place in the mystery.
Membership: An extrapolation of consciousness from the eternal dreams of divinity; the soul’s journey into matter. Unconscious union with the cosmos.
Earth: Instinctive
Quality and imperative: Smooth consciousness merging with the senses, punctuated with flickering moments when undecipherable dreams, objects and living things appear out of nowhere. Body consciousness predominates.
Membership: Embedded in nature. Unconscious membership within nature.
Moon: Dreamtime
Quality and imperative: Ebbing and flowing awareness; magnetized towards safety, comfort and warmth.
Membership: Embedded in clan; embedded in magical nature within the cosmos.
Mars: Impulsive self
Quality and imperative: Hot surges, impulsed to ‘have it’ now, the Id, primal satiation.
Membership: The self is now emerging within a power-dominated tribe, within an environment that includes marauding tribes, the wildly chaotic jungle of unknown powers of sorcery and magical nature.
Ceres: Role-playing self
Quality and imperative: Attention zooms into the grain of sand, totem or totem toy and finds the universe it is creating. Seeking self-protection and pleasure from others.
Membership: Shamanic, ancestral and early farming Goddess village as a whole universe unto itself in the continuously seasonal cyclic reality.
Jupiter: Mythic self
Quality and imperative: Yearning. Attention expands out in all directions, seeking epic vision, adventure and the rush of the awesome.
Membership: Heroes and gods create the universe—empires, theocracies and mafias of various scales of mythic membership compete with each other. Mythic societies, including advanced Goddess cultures.
Saturn: Citizen self
Quality and imperative: Self-censoring. Attention constantly seeks reassurance, order, absolute morality, everlasting peace of mind and release from guilt. Looking to mend and secure the imperfect world; relying on future reward in heaven and the comfort of authority.
Membership: Belonging in a fixed family unit, in a city state, in early nation states, in clear-cut cultural structures within a pyramidal cosmos with a supreme godhead that has bestowed the truth upon it.
Uranus: External and materially expressive self
Quality and imperative: Seeking winning strategies, successful alliances, sensual satisfaction, adrenalin peaks of excitement and melodrama, fun, lightness, wit, a sharp edge, new tastes of life, cutting-edge novelty in the fast lane culture. Looking to win the game of life.
Membership: Cool crowd within corporatized nation states within international market economy within the modern world within the random and material universe.
Neptune: Soulful merging self
Quality and imperative: Seeking bliss, depth, humanitarianism, peaceful and loving agreement, sensitivity, empathy, authentic soul and healing. Looking to feel wholly connected and to feel self is working to bring about a world of equality.
Membership: Connected to soul groups within the global rainbow tribe within the unified cosmic ocean—a connected osmotic field of consciousness and energy.
Pluto: Systemic expressive self
Quality and imperative: Seeking enjoyment of the changing emergent reality and to express self. Freedom from compunction or obligation. Looking to respond, resolve paradoxes, play the game of life to keep it going, to give to others without undue sacrifice, to improve life where possible and facilitate others. Innovative novelty, spontaneity and the refreshment of connections with people. Advanced expression of instinctive self on a higher turn of the spiral.
Membership: Membership is an oscillation of isolation and expanding interdependence within the chaotic living complex systems of relationship, family, friends, all interpenetrating each other within the whole human species and natural Earth, within the evolving holonomic living life fields of existence.
Chiron: Integrated self and The Emergence of Planetary Consciousness
Quality and imperative: Experiencing the wonder of dynamic wholeness and open-state holons of existence. Seeking direct experience of living consciousness. Looking to enjoy the mystery of the union with the totality of life on Earth; opening to the mysteries of the cosmos and the complex magical nature of reality. Existential intimacy. Advanced expression of dreamtime self on a higher turn of the spiral.
Membership: Belonging is found within cascading and kaleidoscopic relationships within the whole Earth system and within Life on the grandest scale, which in turn shrinks to the immediacy of each moment. Recognition that consciousness is ubiquitous. The self is subject to the planetary impulse to integrate the primal and natural with civilization and all human artefacts.
Coral Enchantment and Beyond: The future
Various stages of transhuman self and extraterrestrial communities. (More on this Enchantment and beyond later.)
'If you have ever enjoyed listening to a story well told and dreamed that night of being a character in that story... you will love to study The Enchantments of Life. With LJL offering breadcrumbs along the way, you will see your lifestory unfold with all the drama and resolution available to you in the upcoming chapters. Buckle up. It will be an exhilarating ride!' Alison, Littlest Hobo and Biggest Adventurer
As well as the more recognizable key qualities and membership groups outlined above, the map accommodates such psychological and universally mythic processes as those described by Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. However, the Enchantments work also incorporates occult and other phenomena that do not fit into the conventions of psychology.
It is essential to recognize that societies and cultures centred in early Enchantment levels coexist today with the technological world. Since it is true that different levels of complexity exist simultaneously today, it can also be true of the ancient world—and I would contend that the archaeological records do indeed support this contention. I will explore this issue as we go on. To this I would add that if you believe, as I do, that extraterrestrial species visit Earth today, this could also be true of the past. The accommodation of mysticism, alternative views of ancient history and astrological research, as well as occult, trickster spirits, extraterrestrials and other anomalies into this map of human evolution does not in any way compromise its integrity.
These anomalies—which are not adequately considered, if at all, in other developmental models—do not invalidate the integral perspective of evolution through stages as we evolve towards more complex societies. In contrast, the Enchantments acknowledges and integrates more of human experience and testimony.
Enchantments are Frequencies
Now let’s go deeper.
All of these Enchantment levels are within you; some are not yet awakened. Each level is an identifiable field of consciousness, thought and emotion on a specific frequency. Each Enchantment has its own way of determining truth, value system, scripts, clothing, style, tools, technologies, dwellings and architecture. Each specific frequency is encoded with the history of its own development.
All levels are frequencies of consciousness and energy that interpenetrate the physical world in the time–space matrix.
This multi-frequency array of energy cascades within your psyche, albeit a lot of it unconscious at any one time. Correspondingly, this spectrum of energies plays out within the collective unconscious.
In this digital technological age, information (money being one good example) is invisible to us, yet we know it exists and we use it. The internet is a real artefact of invisible information being transported through the Earth’s environment. In the digital age, we are moving closer to recognizing that all information, emotion, thought, gestures, body language and objects are expressions of the living field of conscious energy that we walk about in.
We walk about in this consciousness; we live within the whole kaleidoscope of frequencies. The environment is not just physical; it is an energy field that encompasses all Enchantment frequencies.
Chiron Enchantment, which gradually began emerging from around 1977, is the level of reality where we experience the totality of these frequencies as tangible energy.
Positive Changes of a More Complex Emergence
Each Enchantment level produces new challenges, but here are some of the all-important gains:
As Neptune Enchantment emerges more strongly in the world, a greater equality in society will manifest. More people will feel included, feminine values will gain strength and a diversity of spirituality will be accepted and become part of the consensual reality. Wind and solar power will be more commonly utilized, communities that ‘go back to the land’ will increase and indigenous wisdom will be valued.
As Pluto Enchantment emerges more strongly, a greater diversity of lifestyle will manifest, be accepted and be possible. The expanding population will be more easily accommodated, while new economic models will arise; work will become more vocational. Conflict will be more informational and less aggressive; quality of life for the individual will increase as people need less material goods to enjoy life more. Material progress will continue, but not at the expense of all life on Earth.
As Chiron Enchantment emerges to a greater degree, the larger the likelihood of switching to clean free energy. The environment will be recognized as a living, conscious energy system. The population increase will be seen as positive and humanity will look to the stars for its new colonies. The full manifestation of this level of complexity contains phenomenal potentials for living, for new meta-sciences and for consciousness.
tbc....
