The Secret Doctrine and Complementarity Note: I explain below the relevance of this passage, written in 1888, to quantum theory and the philosophy of complementarity. The URL given immediately below is the testimony of one Leon Maurer concerning Einstein's interest in "The Secret Doctrine". http://users.aol.com/unIwldarts/uniworld.artisans.guild/einstein.html LeonMaurer@aol.com [Helena Blavatsky] The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions: - (a) An omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought - in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable and unspeakable". [Peter Mutnick] If the source of the complementary pairs of opposites is not this type of plenitude, then the alternative is a cheap defective universe. This is the impression that many have of complementarity and the Copenhagen Interpretation, but it is a misconception on their part from the outset. [Blavatsky] To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause - dimly formulated in the "Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European philosophy - is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be". It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, *Sat*), and is beyond all thought or speculation. [Mutnick] The penetration of the Unconscious leads to the implicate order as the true Mind of the Observer. The Unknowable is the foundation for the implicate order as the noumenal back-ground. The Infinite and Eternal Cause = the God of Spinoza = the Implicate Order of Bohm. [Blavatsky] This "Be-ness" is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other hand, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness. [Mutnick] The primary pair of conjugate variables are enunciated in 1888! Moreover a possibly profound meaning is given to them. [Blavatsky] Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolizes change, its essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality is also symbolized by the term "The Great Breath", a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE - BE-NESS - symbolized by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity. It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given here. Herbert Spencer has of late so modified his Agnosticism as to assert that the nature of the "First Cause", which the Occultists more logically derives from the "Causeless Cause", the "Eternal", and the "Unknowable", may be essentially the same as that of the Consciousness which wells up within us; in short, that the impersonal reality pervading the Kosmos is the noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the esoteric and Vedantin tenet. Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object. [Mutnick] This Absolute Consciousness is the same discovered by Edmund Husserl through the phenomenological reduction. It is discovered by everyone who turns their attention inward and asks in sincerity, "Who and What am I?" But this cannot be done casually or even necessarily through an act of will. Husserl said only that one should perform the phenomenological reduction at least once during one's lifetime. It is a peak experience and the experience of a lifetime. Zen adepts often had two experiences: one an initial Kensho; and later a complete Enlightenment. [Blavatsky] Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective. Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. I is the *fons et origo* of force and of all individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand, precosmic root-substance (*Mulaprakriti*) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature. Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation. [Mutnick] Substance and Ideation have to do with the State Vector and its Reduction. [Blavatsky] Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe". Apart from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of matter that consciousness wells up as "I am I", a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain level of complexity. Again, apart from the Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue. [Mutnick] Clearly applicable to the State Vector and its Reduction. [Blavatsky] The "Manifested Universe", therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation". [Mutnick] EX-istence = explicate order. [Blavatsky] But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject to object. This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the "Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of Nature". Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans, the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains to self - or reflective - consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. [Niels Bohr] "Actually, ordinary language by its use of such words as thoughts and sentiments, admits typical complementary relations between conscious experiences implying a different placing of the section line between the observing subject and object on which attention is focussed. We are here presented with a close analogy to the relationship between atomic phenomena appearing under different experimental conditions and described by different physical concepts, according to the role played by the measuring instruments. In fact, the varying separation line between subject and object, characteristic of different conscious experiences, is the clue to the consistent logical use of such contrasting notions as will, conscience and aspirations, each referring to equally important aspects of human personality." (Niels Bohr, "Physical Science and the Study of Religions", 1953, in TPWNB, Volume IV, pp. 159-60) [Mutnick] Fohat as the mediator of subject and object is more than the "aspects of the human personality" which are products of varying placements of the split. Fohat actually synthesizes the opposites (complementary pairs) in a way that is not yet understood. THIS IS A PRIMARY KEY TO THE SCIENCE OF THE 21ST CENTURY! IT EXPLAINS THE DYNAMIC ACTION OF WILL IN A UNIVERSALLY CREATIVE SENSE. [Blavatsky] The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader. (1) The ABSOLUTE; the *Parabrahm* of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being. (2) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, *unmanifested* Logos, the precursor of the "manifested". This is the "First Cause", the "Unconscious" of European pantheists. (3) Spirit-Matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe", Purusha and Prakriti, or the *second* Logos. (4) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI. The ONE REALITY; its *dual* aspects in the conditioned Universe. Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: - (b) The Eternity of the Universe *in toto* as a boundless plane; periodically "the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing", called "the manifesting stars", and the "sparks of Eternity". "The Eternity of the Pilgrim"* is like a wink of the Eye of Self-Existence. *"Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our "Monad" (the two in one) during its cycle of incarnation. It is the only immortal and eternal principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole - the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the one spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used, for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedantins call it Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation, too, differs somewhat from that of the occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedantins themselves. |