N100
Up to now, in explaining the process (summarised in the notes at the foot of figure 14) whereby Alpha-A's 32 basic character-types are constituted and formed, the operative forces invoked have been able to act quite independently of the free choices of the various individuals concerned. Among the further sub-divisions remaining to be explored, however, one that that we have so far presented only in summary form, viz., the division into Golden-, Silver-, Bronze- and Iron-Age types results to a considerable extent from the interaction of a variety of circumstances largely dependent on individual acts of free choice.
For reasons we can discuss later, it will be useful to employ the code-letters “Q” and “R” in reference to the mechanism of “Yes”-or-“No” (coded Q/R) that gives each conscious Subject two ways of inserting him- or herself into both the horizontal (introvert and extrovert) and the vertical (lower and higher levels of awareness) systems of his or her own internal nervous process (considering this both as a process, and as a process with a content). The specification (at any point in time and space) of this choice as “Yes” (Q) rather than “No” (R) is effectively a function of social influences, in other words, of the sort of society in which one wishes to live, and of the sort of culture and civilization one feels drawn to regard as (and to make) one's own. This choice in its turn constitutes an acceptance or else an at least partial rejection of the actual society in which one happens, in fact, to be living at the time. We are, therefore, at this stage clearly discussing matters of deliberate choice, and yet, at the same time, we are looking at the impact of environmental factors (including each individual's so called good or bad fortune in finding him- or herself in this particular sort of society rather than in another).
In practice, the same sorts of cybernetic mechanisms as were found to determine the fundamental character of the individual psychological types also stand at the basis of Alpha-A's sub-division of all societies and civilizations into the four Ages - Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron. That, indeed, is why all civilizations known N101 to history have, by and large, followed fairly predictable lines of development in their rise and fall. As cross-cultural studies, such as those of Arnold Toynbee, Pitrim Sorokin and José Argüelles, enable us more easily to appreciate, despite all their individual fluctuations and oscillations, the historical course actually taken by all societies takes the form of an upwards and downwards spiralling cycle through these four Ages in the order I have just mentioned.
From an empirical point of view, the mechanism underlying this pattern of four Ages is a consequence of the way in which individuals link (or ‘cathect’) their particular Q and R responses (where “Q” indicates ‘loving quest for and acceptance of’, and “R” stands for ‘rejection of and even revulsion occasioned by’) to their own introvert and extrovert processes. Four main possible developments of higher human consciousness are typically available, and Alpha-A practitioners refer to these as Art, Science, Spirituality, and Cooperation. By Art and Science are meant the acceptance of the respective values of extroversion and introversion in the sphere of superior consciousness, and by Spirituality and Cooperation are meant, instead, the rejection of these same values. In other words: Art = QE; Science = QI; Spirituality = RE; Cooperation = RI. Hence, the choice available to each individual is that of deciding which Q and which R are to be dominant (with a value of about five eighths), and which are to be recessive (with a value of about three eights). Notice, too, that while this choice is freely available to each individual for him or her to make, it is, nevertheless, a choice which must be made and cannot be avoided - since, unless the individual does choose to give some shape and direction to his or her life, he or she cannot possibly ‘get it together’ or relate at all satisfactorily to any form of society actually existing. Each person, therefore, makes two of these four available options the dominant ones in his or her life, and the other two options are then recessive. Because there are only these four possibilities in the social psychology of individuals, it is meaningless to speculate about different shades of difference, mixed types, or synthetically engineered social hybrids, since unless the relevant mechanisms actually function as Alpha-A practitioners claim they do, any sort of coherent social identity becomes quite impossible to sustain, in other words, what results is not another different way of living in society, but simply an utter failure to participate in its life in any way at all! Hence:
Each individual within the context of his or her own psychology, round about the age of 24 or 25, in other words, roughly half-way between the establishment of his or her basic adult psychological type at about the age of 16 or 17 and his or her eventual arrival at character-typological maturity round about the age of 32 or 33, comes to exercise one of these four available options with its precisely determined cybernetic structure. Now, the nature of any society or civilization in any given historical period is determined by the sum of many individuals whose types vary. Each society may, therefore, be described as typically belonging to one or other of these four sorts we have just considered at the individual level - simply because a majority of its members actually are individuals of that particular range of developing character-types. Obviously the situation is always fluid and dynamic, since a minority of individuals always belong to each of the other three ranges of developing character-types, and as the proportions within the social mix vary with the succession of generations, so do societies change:
The spiralling pattern of social change always follows this order: Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Golden Age, etc. The main problem of primitive and neo-primitive Golden Age societies is that of becoming strong as a nation, and the solution is found when an ideology is imposed. The main problem of the N104 resulting Silver Age is the crisis provoked by critics of the negative aspects of the imposed ideology, and the result is an increasing fragmentation of society into relatively compact rival groupings which are no longer entirely self-sufficient. The main problem of the Bronze Age thus created is the experienced need for economic expansion in the interests of survival, and the eventually inevitable result is a take-over by the fattest cows in the herd. That is the Iron Age situation.
The Iron Age of the Roman Empire gave way to the Golden-Age Christian communities of the first centuries of our era, and these in their turn to the highly integrated Silver Christian Middle-Ages, which were then replaced by the Bronze Age of a more fragmented feudal system, which eventually paved the way for a new and different sort of unification of nations in the course of that industrial development of which our present Iron Age is the result. This entire cycle has taken about 2000 years to complete and, taking into account the available results of observations of the history of such other civilizations as the Arab, the Chinese, the Indian, and the Japanese, it would appear that each Age tends on average to last for about 500 years.
Currently the Golden Age prevails in Polynesia and parts of Central Africa. The Silver Age has perhaps already lost its recent dominance in what was the U.S.S.R., where, however, it has not yet by any means given up the ghost, and it remains dominant in China, and in some other parts of Asia and Africa. The Bronze Age already occupies Latin America, North Africa and parts of Asia, while groups with Bronze Age preferences are a rapidly rising force to be reckoned with in all parts of the former Soviet bloc, now increasingly threatened with disintegration. The Iron Age is that of Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.S.A., and most of Western Europe, but the rising tide of Golden Age aspirations and sensitivities is clearly apparent in many Iron Age strongholds - along the East Coast of North America and in Southern England in particular.1
N105 I remarked in 1982 that one of the advantages of the then Polish crisis was that it had confronted East and West alike with a point of conflict so bad that things could only improve; they could not possibly get worse. In the West, the then rising generation, already frustrated by the lack of spiritual values in the dominant Iron Age culture, and feeling the need for more communication and collective experience, was already increasingly opting in favour of a new Golden Age. Planet Earth as a whole, however, was still polarised into two diametrically opposite camps, since the U.S.S.R. was a seemingly stable Silver Age society in opposition to a firmly entrenched Western Iron Age system.
These Silver- and Iron-Age societies were both strong from a military point of view, and both were highly integrated in ideological terms, even though this was on an entirely different basis in each case - the West still representing the introvert values of cost-effective capitalist productivity, while people in the U.S.S.R. were reluctantly learning to call into question the opposed extrovert values of their collectivist ideology. In 1994, as I mentioned in the Foreword,2 Professor Vittorio Hess published a detailed and fully documented comparative study of these very matters, and I need not, therefore, go over the same ground again here.
To return to an even closer examination of the internal psychology of the actual individuals who are the actors in this great drama of life. We have already seen how the interface of individual and environment develops in function of the sum of four flows of information, and I next propose to consider the psychological results of this complex state of affairs.
My previous distinction with respect to the relationship of Subject (software) and Object (hardware) was based on the flow of information either from Subject to Object and vice-versa, and also on whether this information flow was being considered from the point of view of the nervous system as the functioning Subject or else from the point of view of that same system as Object. I termed N106 the flow from Subject to Object introversion, and that from Object to Subject extroversion. I identified higher mental functioning as the conscious Subject, and equated the physical infrastructure of human nervous activities with the complementary and unconscious Object. The additional distinction that I need to introduce at this stage, in order to complete our review of the relationship between individual and environment, refers to a specifically human aspect. Hence, we are no longer restricted to analysing a mechanism in yet another set of four related but different ways; we simply need to take into account the actual subjective result of all this nervous activity.
It is evidently the nervous system that establishes the bridge between Subject and Object, since the human brain is both software and hardware, and when we scrutinize the external relationship of the Subject as a whole to the experience he or she has (or better, is) of the previously mentioned internal link-up of the two levels of consciousness, the lower and the higher, we are no longer discussing a relationship between empirically distinct entities, such as the body and the external environment. What we are considering is the actual result of all the psychological processes hitherto considered, more or less integrated and brought to self-expression in a final (but still interior) impulse, that recapitulates all that the nervous system has managed to achieve.
The Subject as self-conscious content (software) confronts him- or herself as the integral quasi-objective process (hardware) of which he or she is the distinguishable but inseparable result,3 and asks, only indirectly in respect of this result but directly with regard to the self as process: “Am I O.K.?” There are only two possible replies: “Yes” or “No”4 (coded: Q/R). “Q” (meaning “That's fine by me.”) is a cybernetic impulse of excitation; “R” (meaning “I don't like that.”) is the contrary cybernetic impulse of inhibition. As soon as this further distinction is combined with the preceding ones, we have to hand a sufficiently complete model both of the empirical mechanisms of consciousness and of its human psychological content.
N107 This Alpha-A distinction into eight ‘lines of force’ is entirely in keeping with Carl Jung's distinction of both his introverts and his extroverts into four types centred on sensation, thought, feeling, or intuition. One important difference between our explanation and Jung's earlier description of the same phenomena is that, being not a Hermit but a Warrior, he was not naturally inclined to draw any clear and precise conclusions regarding individual character-type structure from his own examination of the relevant empirical data. Nevertheless, he did talk about four conscious and four unconscious forces, two in each set of four being introvert and the other two extrovert. Beyond that point, he preferred to remain vague.
Alpha-A's distinction between Q and R corresponds, moreover, to Sigmund Freud's distinction between the forces of love and aggression. His disciples have frequently made the lamentable mistake of interpreting these impulses very superficially, identifying love, for instance, with the sexual instinct, and aggression with the instinct for death and destruction. Eric Fromm has very rightly criticised Lacan and others for their pansexualism, as well as for their over slick and rather commercial attempts at re-stating the master. In any event, the true meaning of the distinction between these opposed forces is no other than the simple, commonplace and seemingly trivial Q/R difference5 between “Yes” (love, excitation) and “No” (hatred, aggression, inhibition).
Let's take a closer look at our eight factors or lines of force, viz.: QSC, QSU, QOC, QOU, RSC, RSU, ROC, and ROU.6
Figure 15 (in which the upper-left to lower-right diagonal exhibits Alpha-A's ‘ALPHA’ or extrovert process, while the upper-right to lower-left diagonal similarly exhibits the ‘A’ or introvert process) presents a summary picture of the various types of impulses and drives we have been discussing and exploring:
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Carl Jung in discussing the unconscious spoke quite rightly of a reversal or inversion, in the sense that every unconscious drive contains something that has not been differentiated as yet, that has so far not found conscious expression. When we use Alpha-A methods in examining our various conscious drives, we can also see that the unconscious side of each of them is a confused mass into which reflective thinking has not as yet penetrated. By and large, our problem areas are found in the same regions of the mind N111 as those that Jung was discussing when he spoke about reversal and inversion; he was simply referring to the fact that processes become conscious precisely in proportion as they are freed from the entanglements of their unconscious attachments (and are, therefore, no longer cathected to these).
Sigmund Freud pointed out, also quite correctly, that the phenomenon of inversion neither means nor implies that the unconscious side ever comes to lose its own importance, since it still contains processes which are opposite to and the reverse of those which the Subject has now differentiated consciously. Clearly, whenever we turn our conscious attention on any particular aspect, we inevitably lose sight of some other equally relevant aspect - usually one that we find it difficult appropriately to reconcile with the one on which we have focussed.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, as a result of their ongoing experience of life in society, some members of each of Alpha-A's 32 basic character-type groupings consciously achieve a maximum operational development of their typical potential, while others do not. This is the basis for our already mentioned distinction between ‘established’ and ‘non-established’ adult character-types. Although the level of conscious satisfaction attained to by established types may lead to the apparent elimination of their unconscious aspects, these aspects quite naturally continue to operate, albeit in a different way. Highly developed Artists, for instance, unless they have also dedicated themselves to Science, are likely to retain their narcissistic drives, since extroversion is dominant among Artists, and introversion is recessive. Similarly, many excellent Scientists retain an unconscious drive towards sexuality and affability; this is another instance of what Jung called ‘intersection’ (or transposition), i.e., a sort of unconscious that seems to be the opposite in type to the one we might spontaneously expect such an individual to have.
We can grow to understand Jung's so called intersection or transposition of conscious and unconscious elements with much greater clarity and precision, if we consider the relevant extrovert and introvert components separately. When we do so, it soon becomes evident that the actual phenomena are very seldom anything like as startling as Jung imagined and suggested - the instances on which he principally concentrated his attention and N112 then used as examples to illustrate his own theories were, in fact, rather special cases. Let's take a look at established adult character-types drawn from each of Alpha-A's 32 basic classes:
At this stage it may prove helpful if I say a little more about our distinction between Subject (software) and Object (hardware) by analogy with the familiar domestic T.V. receiver. In viewing a particular T.V. programme on, say. BBC-1, we can contrast the perspective of the professional T.V. engineer with that of the ordinary domestic viewer. The ordinary viewer does not normally focus any special attention on the frequency and strength of the carrier-wave, or attempt to assess and evaluate the functional efficiency of the receiver as a device for de-coding complex electronic signals; interest is ordinarily confined to viewing and listening to the contents of the advertised programme being transmitted from the production studio. The T.V. engineer, however, displays a keen interest in the periodic presentation of the test-card, not in order to study its contents (which are already quite familiar), but in order to infer (from an inspection of the quality with which this is received) whether both the receiving-set and the transmission process are in optimum functional condition.
The T.V. engineer's interest in the carrier-wave illustrates what Alpha-A practitioners call emphasis on the Object; the ordinary viewer's interest in the programmed modulations of that carrier-wave illustrates what is meant by the Subject sector within the human nervous system. Just as we may distinguish but can never separate the programmed modulations from the carrier-wave, so N117 we can never separate Subjective higher processes from their underlying functional nervous infrastructures.
Occasionally a passing train or a low-flying aeroplane temporarily throws the T.V. picture out of focus, or even makes it vanish completely, but a relatively minor adjustment to the position of the ærial sometimes suffices to solve the problem entirely. Such adjustments can be compared to the effects of formal and informal education, and of the normal gradual process of ‘individuation’ (Jung's name for the relatively autonomous, self-directing, more or less spontaneous unfolding of each person's consciousness through time) in improving the Subject's capacity for actual attunement, i.e., for arriving at a complete (although never total) expression and manifestation of him- or herself as Subject.
On other occasions, however, no amount of tinkering about with the T.V. receiver makes any real difference to the quality of the reception, or if it does, the end-result is that one can now receive BBC-1 quite well, but one can never get any of the other T.V. stations at all! All too frequently in psychiatry and psychotherapy we also find that when, as a result of this or that form of supposedly professional intervention, a client has been satisfactorily restored to being his or her socially more or less acceptable and accepted former self, this ‘improvement’ has been purchased at the very high process of practically suppressing and inhibiting any discernible process of further individual and personal growth…
Alpha-A's Rule Five, Use Frequency- and not simply Amplitude Modulation, invites us, to express things in the language of our present analogy, to tune in our individual receivers, i.e., our nervous systems, not only to BBC-2 as well as BBC-1, but also to as wide a range of available Italian, Chinese, Martian, Venusian and other Satellite or extra-terrestrial transmissions as is appropriate (at that stage) for our further growth and development.9
N118 Next, I suggest we take a further look at a different and earlier occurring subdivision of Alpha-A's 32 basic character-types, viz., one which emerges at about the age of 16 or 17, and that depends on whether until that time the individual has experienced life in a family environment that principally protected him or her from the aggressivity of the circumambient society, or whether his or her family encouraged the individual to develop a pattern of aggressivity on his or her own account.
A protective approach tends to produce an individual (coded “Z”) who is inclined by preference to be more conscious of the Q components within his or her personality, but experiences some difficulty in expressing the R elements. Such an approach is more common in relatively well-to-do and middle-class families, but is by no means confined to these - partly because some very poor families living in marginal situations can be extremely protective towards their children, and wish them to resemble the children of the more affluent, at least to the extent of their being furnished with opportunities for study and provided with a strong sense of protective security in their own home environment, partly, too, because in other parts of the world several existing social systems are very different, indeed, from that which is fairly widespread throughout Europe.
The aggressive approach leads to the development of an individual (coded “X”10) equipped to express the R components in his or her make-up, but in whom the Q factors remain an unknown quantity - largely latent and unexploited. Whenever and wherever protection is absent, aggressivity prevails; from birth onwards the N119 individual experiences life as a state of insecurity and struggle, experiencing his or her own need to resist the aggressivity of the external world by learning how to impose him- or herself on the environment.
Since neither Z-type nor X-type development results in a balanced character formation, other factors obviously have to play their part. The situation can be worse than this because, in certain pathological cases, individuals arrive at the age of 16 or 17 without having even become recognisable as either Z-types or X-types, their potential in one or the other direction having remained unconscious, buried, as it were, somewhere in the confused mist of the nervous carrier-wave, and not yet analysed out of it and differentiated into the form of a programme.
Normally by that age the individual will have become a recognisable Z-type or X-type, and so other aspects of his or her development can be attended to. Z-types commonly need to make their R drives more conscious, while X-times usually need to become more aware of their Q drives. Although psychotherapy, psychosynthesis, etc., may prove helpful, the best aid to growth N120 and development we have available is our ordinary environment and our experience of life as, between the ages of 16 and 33, we develop some sense of our own personal style. All being well, by that age Z-types will have successfully brought their R factors, and X-types their Q factors to appropriately conscious expression, will, in other words, have become established Z- or X-types (coded “Z*” and “X*”).
In the majority of cases, however, it appears likely that the advance from Z/X to Z*/X* does not occur; most character-types remain unestablished. Over-protection is the common explanation of someone's remaining stuck at the Z-type stage of development; some families encourage young people to keep on studying, and never to accept a job that is not both secure and highly recommended (in such cases, the years spent at University can be quite damaging psychologically and, to that extent, student-loan schemes represent an improvement on grants). Unestablished X-types might have been helped psychologically by better social security arrangements with a more generous allocation of opportunities for further study, but frequently cannot find any situation to match their growth needs, and are consequently obliged to keep on struggling, and never attain establishment.
Established types obviously lead more successful lives. As regards character-types at a low level of consciousness, this is especially true of those who are good at work (Managers, Trainees, Learners, and Professional Criminals). It is also true of all types with a superior level of awareness (Angelic or attuned), and of some negative types (viz., the Satanic, Luciferian, Bohemian and Desperado types).
Despite their successful establishment, however, Z*-types and X*-types are still perceptibly different in later lives. It is true that they have all brought both their Q and their R drives to conscious expression. Nevertheless, whichever of these drives was in actual fact brought to conscious expression first (in the chronological sense of “first”) remains the main point of reference and, as it were, sets the tone or establishes the atmosphere in which the other set of drives has to operate.
This fact notwithstanding, all established types achieve and express harmony and balance of a sort, whereas non-established N121 types continue to show signs of weakness and difficulty. Z-types frequently fail to notice their own weakness, however, and allow themselves to be manipulated as tools by established types. On the other hand, X-types becomes increasingly frustrated and inhibited on account of their own continuing failure to develop and grow, even if this is not something they like to admit, even to themselves.
Because there is also a sense in which the process of character-type establishment is an example of frequency- rather than simply of amplitude-modulation, it can, in J. D. Solomon's sense, be accepted as an instance of ethical (or better, æsthetic) improvement. Hence, ‘the ethical’ good does not coincide with what Alpha-A practitioners understand by ‘the moral’ good, since this latter refers to the dominant Astrologer's concern also to live Alchemically, and to the dominant Alchemist's parallel concern also to live Astrologically.11
Next, we can take a closer look at one of the psychological drives as it functions within a non-established character-type and, by way of example, I am selecting that drive which Alpha-A practitioners call Art when it operates consciously, and affability when its functioning is unconscious. As usual, there are four possibilities:
Having almost completed this preliminary account of all the main Alpha-A principles, it will be as well, before concluding, to illustrate some of my earlier remarks by examining at least one of our 32 basic character-types in greater detail from the vantage-point of our present understanding of the system as a whole. I shall, therefore, discuss the Hermit type:
Were we similarly to analyse the other 32 basic character-types during their adult phase of development, we would then have before us an almost complete qualitative character-type network, in terms of which we could interpret all the developments taking place in our own daily experience and observation of human life.
In order to conclude our survey, we now need to consider the relationship between sexual development and character-type specification, in other words, we need to examine more closely the emergence of specifically distinct sexual types at about the age of 16 or 17. It seems best to begin by recalling our eight basic psychological drives.
Q and R are separate energy charges that remain separate the one from the other in their relationships both to the conscious and to the unconscious. The distinction between introversion and extroversion, by contrast, is made on the basic of the energy level of the actual process of differentiation whereby unconscious materials come to conscious expression. Research has shown that whether a given individual is of one type or another depends on whether his or her energy charge is mainly Q or mainly R - indeed, each type's mental developments depends on Q and R, so that his or her nature is, at the purely physical level, determined. When a portion of Q energy remains unconscious and is not appropriately differentiated into its introvert and extrovert components, this is because the system carries a stronger charge of R energy, so that R drives more readily achieve their proper conscious expression and differentiation, while Q energies remain latent. On the other hand, when there is a stronger charge of Q energy, a portion of R N124 energy remains undifferentiated and unconscious, while the Q drives achieve conscious expression.
The Plato-type Artist Astrologer, for instance, as I mentioned earlier, tends to have some unconscious reversal, in other words, he or she on the one hand develops consciously as an Artist and in terms of spirituality, but on the other hand retains some unconscious narcissism combined with application and also some unconscious masochism. This, incidentally, is precisely the sort of case that led Carl Jung to take an interest in what he called the reversal of extroversion and introversion in the unconscious. Whenever there is conscious extroversion, as in the case of Art, the unconscious will always be (if we adopt Jung's terminology) ‘introvert’.
However, keeping to this example of Art, but considering things from our present Alpha-A perspective, there are two alternative unconscious possibilities, viz., affability and application. The extrovert member of this pair, i.e., affability, being more closely related to Art-extroversion proper, will tend to weaken gradually and to be subsumed eventually into consciousness as Art but, to counterbalance this development, application will at the same time tend to increase. The reason for this is that any unconscious differentiation of extroversion and introversion is a consequent derivation from something taking place in consciousness, which the unconscious necessarily has to counterbalance, so that the required homoeostasis is maintained within the system as a whole. Obviously, the unconscious counterpart to the Plato type's spirituality is masochism, which is a sort of aggressivity directed against oneself.12
If the Plato type we are considering happens also to be a Q-type (i.e., the Q energy-charge is dominant, with R energy recessive), his or her conscious Art and Science drives will be more highly developed, the unconscious retaining no more than traces of narcissism and application, and there will be no affability at all. In N125 such a type spirituality and cooperation will, on the other hand, fail to achieve their complete development and, as a result of the consequent incomplete differentiation of what spirituality there is, a certain amount of sadism will operate unconsciously in combination with the unconscious masochism that also characterises this type. Q-type Plato types exhibit sado-masochistic tendencies both physically and psychically within the context of their own sexual self-expression.
If we now turn our attention to a Plato type who is also of the R-type, the development of spirituality and cooperation is more complete, and only masochism remains unconscious on that account. However, since Art and Science remain largely unconscious, as well as masochism we find not only narcissism-application but considerable affability. Narcissism is this type's primary characteristic when he or she is considered in a sexual context.13
When studying sexual development in relation to character-types, we also observe that teenagers who by the age of 16 or 17 have developed pseudo-adaptation in their introvert Alchemical sector, are thereby enabled also to control their own physical-sensory activities as well. Hence, their sexual conduct is also typically normal and non-problematic, being rather mechanical and more animal than human in quality. The explanation is that Q and R energies are evenly balanced in these 8 (out of Alpha-A's basic 32) type, so that sexual homoeostasis is quasi-automatic, there being no experienced need for effort in order to actuate either the Q or the R energetic components within the various drives.
On the other hand, whenever disadaptation is present in the introvert Alchemical sector, the sexuality of both Q-types and R-types can be very much out of balance (with particular repercussions either in the Q dimension or in the R dimension); such types have either too little available energy or too much of it, and this fact accounts for the considerable difficulties they typically encounter.
N126 In Angelic and attuned types the presence or absence of disturbance in the Alchemical sector is not important from a sexual point of view, since higher level disturbances exercise no perceptible influence on the operation of either Q or R charges as such, and these are typically harmonised, not automatically and quasi-mechanically as is the case with pseudo-adapted types, but because they have themselves developed in natural harmony as a result of growing out of their earlier naturally less harmonious condition gradually and within the context of each individual's life as an increasingly integrated whole. Nevertheless, slight traces of predominantly type-Q or predominantly type-R modes of sexual self-expression will remain, but, instead of giving rise to any particular problem, these will normally impart added interest and zest to this type's harmonious sexual enjoyment, which is nourished and nurtured by his or her free and personal, conscious choice, usually with a higher degree of spiritual motivation than we can realistically hope to find in sexually pseudo-adapted types.
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Although what I have just referred to as ‘sexual traumas’ undoubtedly exist, these experiences are not the basis for any N128 further character-type distinctions. Since traumas do not generally become fixed features within the individual's cybernetic mechanism until he or she is about 32 or 33, it is important that prior to their reaching that age individuals are enabled to experience prolonged periods of an appropriately satisfying affective life. This enables them to grow accustomed to balancing their Q and R energy-charges sensibly so that, even if one or other of these does remain dominant, they are still able to achieve physical-sexual balance and psychic harmony.
To avoid possible misunderstandings, it is important to remember that in the Alpha-A context “dominant” is the complementary opposite of “recessive”; it is not being contrasted with “submissive”. What makes one segment of the cybernetic mechanism dominant is that this primary mechanism draws into its sphere of influence one of the elements more usually associated with the other sector. Hence, the dominant factor always has a value of five eighths, and the recessive factor always has a value of three eighths.
This being so, in normal Q- and R-types the dominant sector (either Q or R) has a value of eight sixteenths (i.e., five sixtheenths + three sixteenths = ½), the recessive sector (either R or Q) has a value of five sixteenths, and a further unconscious and undifferentiated Q/R blend remains with a value of three sixteenths.
In traumatised Q- and R-types (and in non-traumatised types with disadaptation in the sensory sector) it is the non-differentiated side that is dominant with a value of five eighths. Hence, only the recessive energies (three eighths of the aggregate total) are available for differentiation purposes. Consequently, although the dominant drive (either Q or R) still has a value of ½, the recessive drive (either R or Q) now has an effective value of only three sixteenths.
In types which are both sensorily disadapted and traumatised, the recessive drives almost vanish completely, and no more than occasional flashes or short bursts of energy remain available.
Pseudo-adapted types are not to be envied. It is true that their sensory pseudo-adaptation results in a good overall development of both Q and R drives, but this very fact decreases the likely N129 stability of any choices they make as regards the circumstances in which and the persons with whom they will (or will not) permit these drives to be expressed. In that sense, their choices are less free. When they respond to any sexual advances made towards them, it is often hard to know whether they are trying to say “Yes” or “No”. In all human beings the physical and mental levels are inter-related. Hence, pseudo-adapted types inevitably strike us as somewhat insecure and unstable in their modes of behaviour, at least in comparison with consciously adapted types whose sensory side is dominant, since the latter are always very effective in practical day-to-day life.
It seems likely that a tendency to exploit Q rather than R (or R rather than Q) energies is already present at birth (using “birth”, as always in the Alpha-A context, in a rather elastic sense), but the main contributory factors towards the emergence of the various types we have considered are undoubtedly environmental (which is not to deny that these factors, too, can only operate on the innate potential bases which they find available).
Since individuals only reach a measure of maturity as regards their capacity for love (or their capacity for aggression) at about the age of 16 or 17, by which times any scars resulting from infantile traumas will have undoubtedly consolidated their hold on the person, psychoanalysis, depth psychology, psychosynthesis, etc. do well to concern themselves with these aspects, but the main aim ought to be that of promoting each individual's eventual establishment. Unless any sexual traumas have been resolved by the age of 33 or so, there is, as I mentioned previously, very little realistic hope of doing much about them, but when a person is still only 17 there is never any good reason to give up hope of his or her genuine recovery.
Moreover, and this is most important, sexual traumas, although they undoubtedly inflence the ways in which people feel, think and act, are no more essential features of their true individual characters than are, e.g., physical disabilities, such as being born blind, or losing both legs in a car accident. That individuals suffering from either of these sorts of disabilities (the mental or the physical) does not make them abnormal; it simply means that their normal behaviour will be different.14
N130 Although in this Chapter we have not entered into a detailed study of any non-established Z-types or X-types, psychiatrists and others with a particular interest in these will, I hope, find its contents a useful basis on which to develop their own research. Alpha-A practitioners postulate that a more or less equal and constant amount of energy is available to all individuals, irrespective of their being Q-types or R-types, but that because its distribution differs, as we have seen, according to type, the available energy sometimes appears to be less, simply because some energy has remained latent in the unconscious. It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that, for example, IQ differences between individuals have a physical-genetic basis and indicate that some persons are born with a greater amount of mental energy than others. The real explanation for various important differences of this sort is the presence at birth of non-empirical distinctions, in virtue of which, as we have seen, some people are born with a low potential level of consciousness, while others are born with a potentially superior level of consciousness.
Another significant explanatory factor is that the operative mental level of certain adults betokens their superior though disturbed level of consciousness. Although this gives them a certain semblance of advantage over others, including positive and established low-level character-types, they actually derive from this no real effective advantage over others at all. Their real assets are, in actual point of fact, the unnoticed but positive recessive energies, and these are the true key to their relative success. In any event, Q and R have no bearing on such matters as these.
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1. Although several Alpha-A concepts are central to the main argument throughout BAWB, the terminology is quite different. Instead of Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, Professor Vittorio Hess compares Western-to-Eastern, Eastern, Eastern-to-Western, and Western models of society, characterising them respectively as: (1) intuitive ideology and ‘spontaneism’, (2) static ideology and managerialism, (3) rational consumerism and managerialism, (4) dynamic ‘spontaneism’ and consumerism.In other words, in BAWB Art is ‘ideology’, Science is ‘spontaneism’, Spirituality is ‘managerialism’, and Cooperation is ‘consumerism’. Similarly conscious extroversion and conscious introversion are regarded as ‘static’ and ‘rational’ functional modalities, while unconscious introversion and unconscious extroversion are identified as ‘dynamic’ and ‘intuitive’ functional modalities respectively.
2. Page 13 - 3, note 4.
3. Cf. Stan Rosenthal, A New Concept of ‘Self’ - The Self as Pattern, Process and Paradox (226 Cathedral Road, Cardiff, 1981; ISBN 0-906145-04-X).
4. Cf. Joan Cooper, The Ancient Teaching of Yoga and the Spiritual Evolution of Man (London: Research Publishing 1979), p.160.
5. The letter “Q” by its shape visually exhibits a minuscule human individual ‘I’ in intersection with, emergence from, and re-entry into the cyclic and resonantly rhythmic totality of the great Cosmic ‘O’. The letter “R” with its associated strong acoustic accents of insistent r-r-repetition very suitably r-r-represents the force and energy required for resolute rejection.
6. In this context “C” = ‘conscious’; “U” = ‘unconscious’; “S” = ‘Subject’ = ‘extroversion¹; “O” = ‘Object’ = ‘introversion’. Alpha-A's convenient verbal equivalents for QSC, QSU, QOC, QOU, RSC, RSU, ROC, and ROU are: Attunement, Affability, Achievement, Application, Spirituality, Sadism, Cooperation, and Masochism, as explained in the immediately following text.
7. In order the better to understand both the established Michelangelo and the established Roosevelt types, notice that emphatic application precipitates a maniac psychosis; pronounced masochism brings on feelings of suicidal depression; abundant affability, no longer satisfied by courteous self-expression towards others, is transformed into a furious mania that initially obliges this type to try to take possession of other people's property and of whatever else he or she can manage to get out of them, and later degenerates into neurosis resulting from the frustration of being actually able to obtain so very little in practice. Similarly, excessive sadism, ensnared in the fury of “always-having-so-much-to-do-that-I-haven't-got-a-monent-to-spare”, quite obviously never entirely succeeds in this type's attempts to impose his or her own ideas and projects on others, and eventually degenerates into a frustrating sense of continually jumping up and down in a vacuum.
8. The foregoing remarks are best studied within the context of a review of our earlier detailed account of Alpha-A's 32 basic character-type structures.
9. To make the most important part of the same point quite plainly and directly. Attuned types seeking not only homoeostasis but superhomoeostasis are strongly urged to cultivate authentic relationships not only of Hermit to Hermit or of Iron-Age type to Iron-Age type, but of Hermit to Warrior and of Iron-Age to Bronze-Age type, etc. For pilgrims along this Way the going will not always be easy, but the journey is well worth making. Another challenge that Academician Doctor J. D. Solomon in particular recommends us to accept, is that of exploring various so called altered states of consciousness, whenever this seems appropriate, in order to communicate with other, non-human and/or extra-terrestrial life-forms. I quote: “The ethical point of philosophy is that spiritual progress is not to be achieved by way of amplitude modulation; frequency modulation is vital. In seeking life more abundantly, there is bound to be a risk of achieving life too abundantly to cope with, and there is clearly the possibility of a bad trip. If one can re-member that Satan is always numbered among the Sons and Daughters of G-d, a sense of humour will save one from the risk of utter destruction.” I believe this short extract from one of his many personal letters to me is well worth pondering.
10. One practical reason for selecting “Z” and “X” as code-signs with which to differentiate between ‘protected’ and ‘aggressivity-capable’ types is that this choice obviates any risk of confusing this functional aspect within the cybernetic mechanism with any of the others, which are coded quite differently. “Z”, moreover, inclines us to think quite readily of such protected zones as zoos and zebra-crossings, while “X” suitably indicates that such people frequently find themselves at cross-purposes, and feel they must resort to the crossed swords of aggression and conflict.
11. Moreover, as J. D. Solomon teaches, ‘the cosmic’ goood may transcend the limits of both ‘the ethical‘ and ‘the moral’. If (to revert to our earlier analogy) the conscious development of both Q and R can be compared to improving the quality of T.V. reception, and the conscious development of both our Astrological and our Alchemical potential can be compared to increasing our choice of available programmes, further transpersonal development is like transforming what was merely a T.V. receiver into a more or less autonomous T.V. transmission-and-reception station. I have discussed such possibilities elsewhere.
12. In the Aristotle type we may similarly discern a certain amount of unconscious sadism (aggressivity directed against others), which, unless a very high degree of consciousness has actually been attained, will be expressed as work and cooperation. Unconscious narcissism characterises not only Plato types but Artists in general, who may sometimes actually fall victims to ‘solipsism’, in which case their Art is no longer a conscious activity at all.
13. Since this distinction between Narcissism and Sado-Masochism typically emerges at the age of 16 or 17, questions about the individual's later establishment or not are not relevant in this context. It is important, therefore, always to keep in mind that the Q/R distinction does not in any sense coincide with the Z/X/Z*/X* distinction we considered earlier.
14. Alpha-A classifies individuals on the basis of 896 specifically distinct character-types that occur normally, at least relatively frequently, and in what all of us have grown to accept as a natural human environment. We are not opposed to psychiatrists, psychologists and sociologists classifying the same individuals in any of a variety of other possibly valid ways of so doing, and psychiatrists in particular may possibly find it helpful to use some form of classification-system in which nervous diseases, inherited diseases, madness, etc. are used to discriminate between individuals of one type and those of another. Alpha-A does not even attempt to do this.
N131
Although the Hermit-type René Descartes' Regulæ ad Directionem Ingenii1 was written in 1628 or 1629, it wasn't actually printed until 1701. Leibniz was not particularly impressed by any of Descartes's so called ‘rules’, saying that all they amounted to in the end was: “Take what you need, and do what you should, and you will get what you want”.
Although the Golden-Age Hermit-type Marco Todeschini is the main inspiration behind the five notably different ‘rules’ I (as an Iron-Age Hermit-type colleague of his) have so far expressed and explained, we naturally leave it to others to learn what they can from our greater or lesser achievement, and to assess its value for themselves.
Continuing to express myself in Alpha-A's special, non-ordinary and quasi-technical vocabulary, I think it is true that what we have now placed before you is predominantly a contribution to Astrology. Although firmly grounded on a sound Alchemical basis, its main inspiration has been our Artistic intuition. Neither of us feels in any way obliged to ensure its further diffusion and propagation, but we both continue to welcome any spontaneously offered appropriate complementary ideas and research findings.
As regards astrology as ordinarily understood, we agree that it would be interesting to ascertain whether Alchemists are individuals with a majority of the planets (for this purpose also counting the Sun and Moon as planets) in their natal horoscopes somewhere in Houses 1 - 6, and whether Astrologers have natal horoscopes in with a majority of the planets occupy Houses 7 - 12.
N132 A related question so far insufficiently explored is: Does a preponderance of Q energy result when a majority of planets in the natal horoscope occupy Houses 1 - 3? Does a preponderance of R energy result when a majority of planets occupy House 9 - 12?
A very great deal of research remains to be done, but some sort of correlation appears to exist between Science and Houses 1 - 3, between cooperation and Houses 4 - 6, between spirituality and Houses 7 - 9, and between Art and Houses 10 - 12. At the moment, any further speculation about the likely nature of such a correlation, if it does exist, appears premature.
Among members of the wider public already familiar with Alpha-A some agree that concern with social process is both realistic and practical, while others dismiss Alpha-A as a trivial pursuit, sometimes because they feel it lacks any notable degree of metaphysical depth and subtlety, sometimes because its practitioners do not focus primarily on such questions as: Is there life after death? Is there intelligent life elsewhere in our Solar System?, etc.
Speaking personally, I am utterly convinced that neither conflict nor contradiction is necessarily involved in our striving each of us to develop and manifest our unique and individual talents to the fullest extent possible, while at the same time complementing the contributions we thus make (both to individual and to community well-being) by a grateful acceptance of whatever help and advantages we can derive from the very different gifts others have to offer.
Carl Jung held that history is made by individuals, but he also acknowledged that our contemporary search for a Soul is in important respects a sorely needed community undertaking. In this connection, it is worth taking another look at figure 14. The 8 Angelic types do tend to work well together, but not in such a way as effectively to bring about the Harmonic Convergence so many now seek and yearn for. In fact, a Joan Manning is best employed in conjunction with a Picasso; a Ronald Kyffin complements a Plato; a Freud can be greatly helped by a Steve Harris and a Nietzsche by a Patricia Scott; etc.2 Relationships of this sort, N133 however, which improve the quality of whatever shared practical activities these dyads happen to engage in, will not enable the Angels to appreciate those higher gifts which are characteristic of the attuned alone. Hence, more often than not, the most effective positive social function of Angels is that of making effective use of their capacity to act as bridges and mediators between attuned types and the practical world of the many who are pseudo-adapted. Until the Falklands War occasioned his expulsion from the United Kingdom, Señor Horacio Labat, a distinguished Argentinian archæologist who happened to be a Bronze-Age Warrior, worked excellently well in this way - during office-hours he served his country as a visa-officer on the staff of the Argentine Consulate in Belgravia, in the evenings he contributed to adult education in the private sector in Islington as the Director of New Acropolis (U.K.), and at week-ends he mingled with all sorts of persons as he supervised a stall on the Bayswater Road which, at very reasonable prices, offered for sale a variety of good quality multi-ethnic ornaments, several among them of his own making.3
Relationships between all types of attuned persons can, as I have said, greatly contribute to their own superhomoeostasis and to a higher quality of life within society as a whole. The form these relationships may best take depends to a considerable degree on which of the four Ages these attuned types belong to. Golden-Age attuned type may wish to live together in communes, but Bronze-Age atttuned types will probably prefer to meet and share with each other in something like the New Acropolis neo-Platonic academies. These two aims are not incompatible; indeed, they complement each other perfectly (like hand and glove) - Bronze-Age types exhibit a dominant interest in the academy, and a N134 recessive concern for the life-style of a commune, while Golden-Age types exhibit a dominant interest in communes and only a recessive concern for academic success. Neither Iron-Age nor Silver-Age aware types are very much interested, when the chips are down, in either communes or academies as such, but, since Silver-Age types have a dominant interest in Art and Iron-Age types have an equally dominant interest in Science, and since Art and Science alike are both the programme of the communal way of life and the main agenda on the academy's time-table, it ought to be obvious that, provided all the initial misunderstandings are brought out fully into the open and tackled honestly and sensibly, all these different attuned types can get along together very well indeed.
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Golden-Age and Silver-Age types share similar Astrological components, and so they can unite in working-groups with common purposes and shared ideals. The same is also true of Bronze-Age and Iron-Age types. However, when it comes to the practicalities of daily living, it is the sharing of Alchemical components that is most important. Hence, Golden-Age and Iron-Age types can collaborate on the project of the future Golden-Age commune, while Silver-Age and Bronze-Age types continue to live in the midst of contemporary society, where, however, they pool their resources in an endeavour to influence it for the better, e.g., by improving its ideology and culture.
Thus, Bronze-Age Plato-types, whether or not in company with Ronald Kyffin-type Angels, will concentrate on educational theory and on related practical projects. Bronze-Age Picassos, whether or N135 not assisted by Joan Manning-type Angels, will be engaged in artistic movements and in the organisation of related activities. Bronze-Age Warriors, typically in pairs and assisted by at least one Michelangelo Angel, will pursue socially relevant artistic activities with a view to making everybody more spiritual. Bronze-Age Nietzsche-types, whether or not helped by Patricia Scott-type Angels, will formulate projects for intellectual and philosophical movements that have a certain amount of artistic content. Bronze-Age Aristotles, possibly aided and abetted by Henry Clarke-type Angels, will situate their own scientific and philosophical endeavours within a context of academic culture and political diplomacy. Bronze-Age Einsteins, preferably in association with George Walford Angels, will be found at the head of popular scientific movements with high ideals and a practical emphasis. Bronze-Age Hermits, usually in pairs and assisted by a Roosevelt Angel, will develop theories of politics and of superhomoeostatic harmonic convergence in some appropriate setting of political power and technocratic influence. Bronze-Age Freuds, sometimes assisted by Steve Harris-type Angels, will be associated with scientific movements in independent centres possessed of political influence.
Although it would not be especially difficult to introduce a greater degree of variety into the groupings being analysed, and then to study the likely interaction patterns of the various possible combinations of Angelic and attuned types, enough has been said to indicate that certain groupings notably increase the probable likelihood of success when this or that kind of activity is engaged in. Obviously, the proof of the pudding is in the eating…
Plato himself is probably the clearest and greatest example of a Bronze-Age Plato, although, judging by Plato's description of him in the Apology, Socrates, too, appears to have had this same type of character. Socrates' death was a magnificent mockery of the attitudes of his fellow citizens. Obviously, it may have helped to sustain certain political theorists in the stand they were taking at that time, but, more than anything else, it bore witness to the superiority of conscious thought in comparison with all else, even physical life itself. Plato types mock others in order to provoke them, but they do this in a kindly and playful way, and always in an endeavour to put a lesson across - even when this does mean N136 casting pearls before swine. Because the Plato type soars so high above the level of everyday values, his or her mocking (unlike that of the Nietzsche type) never descends to the level of outright and deliberate provocation. A Plato type accepts death in its natural surroundings, and never just out of silly bravado or out of a false sense of the heroic. At the beginning of the Crito Socrates tells his listeners quite plainly that his reasons for not wanting to attempt to escape his death are that he does not wish to occasion any harm to his friends.4
Aristophanes appears to have been a good example of the Luciferian type. Representing himself as the defender of traditional ideas and conservative values, he accused Socrates, an extrovert Artist, of impiety, because he had manifested an interest in the physical sciences. Since at that time Scientists were regrded as dangerous materialist revolutionaries, this was immediately seen as a very grave accusation. No doubt if the ideological and political setting had been a different one, Aristophanes would just as easily have praised the virtues of equality, and then accused Socrates of being an élitist!
The German philosopher Hegel is a good example of a Bronze-Age Aristotle. While Plato had identified virtue with conscious knowledge, Hegel discusses the unhappiness of full knowledge. This is an excellent illustration of the Aristotle type's dynamic appreciation of the various possibilities held out to us by the fluctuating meanings of words. This same character trait is also illustrated by Hegel's own use of such terms as “Being” and “Essence” which have, of course, a very long history, so that their meaning cannot be pinned down very easily, sometimes appearing to be mainly Astrological and at other times emphatically Alchemical in its implications, but always fluctuating and pulsating - as, indeed, does actuality itself. Aristotle types naturally appreciate N137 this dynamic and never make the mistake (to which Plato types are rather more inclined) of imagining before time that there systematic classification of archetypes, categories, species, etc., is now, at long last, complete.5
If Hegel was a second Aristotle, the poet Hölderlin was another Plato, and it is both saddening and instructive to read the well-known correspondence they exchanged. As well as illustrating the deep differences and real difficulties that have to be transmuted superhomoeostatically if character-typically different giants of such stature are to benefit from their mutual encounter,6 these letters contain a number of harsh references to their contemporary Hermann Fichte, a Hermit type whom, possibly because of his relative lack of actual experience, they both seem to have mistakenly reckoned as being no higher than an Angel!
Many still think of the 19th-century North American author Henry David Thoreau as an anarchist, but both his solitary life and his book Life in the Wood are typical of the Ronald Kyffin-type of character.7 Equally characteristic of this type was Thoreau's keen interest in oriental mysticism; he praised the carefree, happy-go-lucky life of the hermit (in the ordinary sense of “hermit”), was especially fond of the Indian philosopher Bartram, and admired (from a safe distance) the way of life of the North American Mucclasse Indians, whose way of celebrating a feast-day was to abstain both from food and from any expression of passion!8
N138 I mentioned a while back Alpha-A practitioners' indebtedness to W. Ross Ashby, the great English Iron-Age Freud-type scientist. Extremely cautious in advancing any conclusions, he preferred to present himself as an empiricist, rather than to risk his chances as a philosopher.9
The Italian politician Firpo is also worth studying, principally in order to observe the differences between this Iron-Age Luciferian and another well known Italian, Norberto Bobbio, who was a Golden-Age Luciferian. Firpo was extremely active as a technocrat but also loved to theorise; Bobbio was always much more hesitant in defining his goals, even when he entered politics proper he still preferred to cut a caper as a theory-oriented and long-suffering intellectual whose interest in politics was entirely altruistic!
However, the only political situation I have commented on so far at all substantially was that in Poland in 1982. Before concluding this Chapter, therefore, it may be as well to take a look at a letter, dated 1 January 1982, from Tadek Jarski, the London Secretary of Solidarity with Solidarity, and addressed to Peter Dawson, at that time Secretary of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE). Like the current situation in Poland and, indeed, throughout the former Eastern bloc, the contents10 of this letter speak for themselves:
Mr. P. Dawson
NATFHE
Hamilton House
Mabledon Place
London WC1H 9BH
01.01.82
Dear Mr. Dawson,
While the civilized world settled comfortably to Christmas celebrations, our brothers and sisters in Solidarity were being deliberately done to death with cold-blooded brutality. I feel profound revulsion when I hear more and more glib talk of relief aid for Poland while seeing little indication of any steps being taken to defend union members who are being ruthlessly exterminated by a police state gone berserk.
There is little doubt that the Polish people urgently need material aid. But charitable donations and hand-outs must not become a substitute for swift and decisive action to defend the shipyard workers, the miners and the steelworkers who are still fighting, and dying, for the fundamental rights of free asssociation, free expression, and to live in self-respect and dignity. These should be the birth-rights of every human being.
When I accompanied Bogdan Lis on his visits to this country and recently, when I issued appeals for support at the Solidarity demonstration in Hyde Park, I witnessed and received countless declarations of support for Solidarity from the British Trade Union Movement. I believe that these were not mere gestures and I call on you with all the urgency I can muster to use every means at your disposal to deter the masters of Poland, both within and without the geographical borders of that country, from the horrible crimes which are now being committed.
I realise that diplomatic channels are being used to aid Solidarity, but these can be deliberately clogged with confusion and diversions giving the military butchers time enough to complete their odious task.
You have at your disposal a mighty weapon - the anger of the British working people. Please use it while there are still the lives of trade unionists to be saved in Poland. Please use it before the detainees die of frostbite, gangrene and starvation, before the miners who were flushed out of their pits with gas and water are tried and executed. Before new and phoney “leaders” of Solidarity appear on television screens.
Please call for an immediate total blackout of all Soviet Bloc trade until:
Each day of inactivity leaves scores of brave people crippled or dead for the “crimes” of exercising their ordinary trade union rights. Please ACT now and call from the roof-tops for everyone to follow your example. I, for one, will keep on doing that until the killing stops or until I learn that there are none left to fight for.
I urgently seek a meeting with you to ask you personally for your assistance and cooperation. Please reply giving me the earliest convenient time and place and I shall be there.
Yours sincerely,
Tadek Jarski
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1. Customarily but inaccuratedly translated into English as Rules for the Direction of the Mind.
2. Difficulties and misunderstandings are common in relationships between Angels and attuned types other than those indicated in figure 14 as being their ideal complements. Nevertheless, marriages made in such circumstances sometimes prosper, but if the Angel and the attuned type also represent different Ages, marriage is rarely advisable, and difficulties in relating to each other will usually be very considerable.
3. New Acropolis was founded in 1957 by the Argentinian historian and archæologist Professor Georges Livagra, and originated from all its founding members' entirely understandable breaking away from H. P. Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, which, in their experience, was at that time very much over-emphasising Asian values and giving insufficient attention to the estoeric heritage of all the other parts of our shared Earth. Horacio Labat. on the other hand, encouraged young people to draw new strength and fresh optimism from an attentive study of the social structures and value-systems of such great traditional civilisations as those of the Incas, the Pharaohs, the Mayans and the Celts
4. Plato's own delineation of some of Alpha-A's basic character-types remained ambiguous. He identified 8 types:
5. Being devoted to research and achievement, Aristotle types try to use words in as many different ways as possible. Ability to do this is necessary whenever we want to carry out authentic research into any classification of archetypes at a superior level, in other words, whenever we wish to construct a new system of classification that is free from both prejudice on the one hand and excessive formalism on the other. The common misinterpretation of Hegel's dialectic results precisely from this sort of failure; he never meant his system to be interpreted with dogmatic rigidity, and had sought to provide no more than a provisional scaffolding to support the process of further ongoing research and eventually better results.
6. Listen, for instance, to Hölderlin criticising Hegel: “We have transformed one of the most subtle and infinite relationships in life into an arrogant morality, yet we believe our own iron-clad concepts are more enlightened than those of the Ancients, who displayed towards such delicate relationships a religious reverence, as relationships never to be considered simply in and for themselves, but always as expressive of that Spirit which presides over the sphere in which these relationships subsist.” (cf. Vigolo's Collection, p. xxx.)
Notice, incidentally, the wide gulf that separates this gentle chiding from Engel's hateful description of Hegel's system as so many “wooden trichotomies”. Engel was another Luciferian type.
7. In antiquity, Sextus Empiricus (a sceptic) was an individual of this type, which explains his dislike of anything's being too cut and dried. The life of Diogenes is also consistent with that of the Ronald Kyffin-type, but it is also probable that Diogenes was attuned.
8. Ronald Kyffin types are unlikely ever actually to translate such an ideal of sexual abstinence into practice. Types like Thoreau are constantly trying out new physical exercises in an effort to rise above their own suffering and, to avoid exposing themselves to any avoidable personal risk, they tend to plan their lives in terms of individual survival. That is why their artistic creativity and inventiveness is never without its practical side.
9. Although his work on the brain is still an essential source of information for our better understanding of the human nervous system, what he actual wrote about almost exclusively was ‘the learning processes of cats’!
10. The style in which it has been written is, however, quite another matter, and one of my main reasons for reproducing the complete text. A letter such as this could not, I suggest, have been written by either a Hölderlin or a Plato; it might possibly have been written by an Arostophanes or an Engel, but does it not, in fact, very eloquently and movingly express the battle-cry of a Warrior?
- Shalom & Welcome! - 
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