Steven Tyman: Archetypes of Transformation

Click here to open the diagram Steven used to illustrate archetypes

• What is an archetype?
  • Way of making sense of experience
  • Kant: common tools for analyzing experience
    • We carry tools for understanding whereever we go
    • Two categories of analysis / thinking:
      • Understanding: thing in itself, linear
      • Reason: Non-linear, reflexive, transcendent function
    • Reason must be tempered
  • Kant left open wide field of investigation into nature of causation
• Ra laid out three archetypical study methods
  • Tarot
  • Astrology
  • Kabbalah
• The Ra group studied Tarot
  • Three groups of seven categories
  • Mind, body, spirit group of each systemic set
  • Systemic set:
    • Matrix
    • Potentiator
    • Catalyst
    • Experience
    • Significator
    • Transformation
    • Great Way
  • Additional archetype of the choice (the fool)
  • Archetypical systems of previous races in the universe had fewer (3) categories
• All archetypes of tarot meant to be studied in relation to each other rather than singly
• Matrix
  • Baseline "clay" of experiential condition - simple awareness
  • Background of meditation experience
• Potentiator
  • That which biases us from within
  • Present in meditation
  • The potential and possibilities
  • "Awaits the reaching"
• Experience
  • Most easily understood - the experience of life and consciousness
  • "Contains" matrix and potentiator
• Catalyst
  • Point of discovery
  • Motivates action in a direction depending on preexisting archetypal conditions
  • Realizes the potential
• Significator
  • Gives significance to experience
  • Stamps and categorizes events
  • Paired with choice
• Choice
  • Governs the choice of polarity between service to self and service to others
  • Key governor of experience that determines outcomes in other systematic areas
  • Tied into significator by determining what "kind" of significance is given to experience and catalyst
• Transformation
  • Change
  • All archetypes contain transformation, but this one is a gateway to the great way
• Great Way
  • The totality of synthesized experience in harmony and balanced
  • Proportions of these various dimensions are configured
• Why do we have archetypes?
  • System for understanding perfection of creator
  • Way of integrating our partial perspective into the perfect unity of the creation (macrocosm)
  • Way of integrating the creation within (microcosm)
• First distortion: Free will
  • Historical, transcendental problem of all religions and philosophies
  • Why is there evil in a perfect creation?
  • Why are there imperfect creatures in this creation?
  • Explanation: gift of creator experiencing self
  • Creator is NOT complete: there is something to be discovered in / of the Creator by the Creator
  • Putting yourself in the mind of the Creator to understand the purpose
  • Archetypes: means that arise within the Creator as a function of self discovery,designed to articulate the question the Creator is asking itself
  • We're the answer!
  • By being imperfect and incompletely formed, we provide opportunities for self discovery
  • You must let go of what you created, and then observe what it does and as / with what it returns
  • Free will allows for maximal discovery of Creator
• How are Kant's categories applied to free will and historical development?
  • Understanding problem of freedom
  • How do we understand who we are?
  • Ways of understanding / predicting actions through patterns
  • Over time there will be tendencies towards certain categories of activity and development
• Archetypes are not tangible / provable
  • Function as self-reflexive analysis of where you are on a particular issue (category)
  • No right and wrong answer: not factual
• Example archetypal analysis: Death
  • Transformation of the spirit
  • "Dark night of the soul"
    • Previous eagerness - making progress - elements in place
    • But then a wall is hit
    • Trying to "recapture magic"
    • Work needed: initial enthusiasm not there
  • Become a new person through your work
    • Understanding needs to sink down into roots
    • Old identity needs to be released or to "die"
    • Figuring out where the old identity is "hooked in" and learning to trust the need for letting go of old patterns and energy / thought configurations
    • You have to "own" the self you are now willing to let die (ergo, need for understanding)
    • Once released, who are you? Will you be anything (to self or otherselves)
    • YOU ARE EXPOSED
    • Faith comes into play - trusting the process without knowing the outcome
    • Let go of all expectations about spiritual path you have been over
  • Uniquely relevant in light of political and geological / astronomical changes
  • We don't know where we're going
  • Hope within and with otherselves
    • Basis of spiritual community

Now we're going through the question and answer phase.

From left to right: Paul Jacobs, Steven Tyman, Carla Rueckert, Maxine Pfefferkorn, Jim Pfefferkorn, Vara Lingklip