Patterns in Process: Transdisciplinarity as a Background for Working with the Elemental Cycle of Transformation

Patterns in Process: Transdisciplinarity as a Background for Working with the Elemental Cycle of Transformation

Abstract This essay outlines connections between the Elemental Cycle as an archetype of transformation, transdisciplinarity, and  cybernetics.  A number of questions are addressed: the nature and importance of connecting these fields, an examination of resources and the dominant disciplinary discourses for the associated fields, and a critical examination of my assumptions, beliefs, and position. Introduction How often...

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An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #6

An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #6

(New readers will want to start with the first installment.) We ended the last installment by discussing the esoteric nature of the injunction.  We continue this exploration, and bring this series to a close. LoF p. 81 In the command "let the crossing be to the state indicated by the token" we at once make the token doubly meaningful, first...

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A little perspective on science in light of Kuhn, relativism, and Eastern philosophy

A little perspective on science in light of Kuhn, relativism, and Eastern philosophy

Much is owed to the ideas of Thomas Kuhn and his thoughts on science, which rightfully and helpfully recontextualize the practice of science in light of wider realities of human complexity.  However, flowing out of postmodern trends, it is easy to then think of science as completely relative and just like any other knowledge...

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Evidence, science, and spiritual knowing: developing organs of spiritual perception

Evidence can be gained through a variety of means.  Just as you would wish to use a sensitive detector of particular frequencies of light if you are doing x-ray crystallography, and not, say, an acoustic detector, so too we need to develop and use detectors that are appropriate to the realm in which we...

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on destruction

The role of destruction, and of the working out of polarities, is a subject that has been dealt with an the alchemical tradition for a very long time.  Alchemically, it is understood that the issue you are dealing with, in which you find yourself (the prima materia) MUST go through a process of putrefaction, of...

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