Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / DISCOVERING A NEW ARCHETYPE: The Buddhabrot Fractal Bridging Math, Myth, and the Collective Unconscious

Transcript

DISCOVERING A NEW ARCHETYPE: The Buddhabrot Fractal Bridging Math, Myth, and the Collective Unconscious · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Today,
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: we are very excited to have Dr. Harry Shirley with
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: us to talk about the Unus Mundus, the idea that somewhere, somehow,
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: there is one world, one world that stretches out into
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: the cosmos. There's a unifying principle, and this is something
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: that Jung and Wolfgang Pauli talked about. And we are
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: going to explore it from the point of view that
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Harry Shirley brings to us. He has a Ph.D. in
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: chemistry and all kinds of research experience at the University
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: of Oxford. And his research aims to continue Jung's unfinished
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: explorations of the deep unconscious by considering the relationship of consciousness, matter,
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: and mathematics. And if that sounds heavy, just wait till
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: you see our short film that will be coming right up.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: So he has a peer-reviewed paper, The Buddha Brought and
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: the Unus Mundus, and it's already generating waves for its
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: bold blend of math and Jungian psychology, which is in
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: itself a process of Unus Mundus. So let's go with Dr.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: Shirley.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: And an exciting podcast.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So we've been mentioning this on some recent podcasts. This September,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: you have a chance to join me and lots of
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: other amazing analysts at the Philadelphia Jung Seminar, which this
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: year is half online and half in person. It's eight
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: weekends a year. And it is a wonderful, deep dive
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: into Jung for clinicians, but also for non-clinicians. And it's
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: where the three of us first met and it's where
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: we got our start. So we invite you to jump
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: on in.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: It is a very wonderful, lively learning community of people
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: that are interested in Jung, find the reading and the
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: seminar and the discussion and the teaching analysts really spark
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: ideas and depth and breadth and all kinds of things.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: So please take a look. If you're interested, go online
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: at cgyungphiladelphia.org.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Hope to see you there. We're so happy to have you.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Your paper was published a couple of months ago. We've
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: all read it and find it very exciting. And you
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: really have to see this phenomenon to understand it. So
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: there's a short film that's been made. that is based
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: on your paper. And so before we even jump into
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the discussion, we thought we would show that film so
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: that our listeners and watchers can get a taste for
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: what we're talking about here and actually see it. And
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: if you're just listening, we do link to some of
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: the images. So please feel free to check those out.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: We live in a world where man has imposed categories
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: and division. Black versus white, good versus evil, mind versus matter.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: But of course, reality does not bend or conform to
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: the categories man has created. Have you ever wondered if
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: your mind and the world outside are more connected than
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: they seem? What if your dreams and the galaxies are
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: made of the very Same thing. Maybe, like me, you've
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: looked at the stars, the trees, and your own reflection,
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: and have thought, that's out there and I'm in here.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: But what if we were wrong? What if everything, your mind,
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: your body, the universe, were part of the same underlying reality?
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: My name is Dr. Harry Shirley. And I would like
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: to introduce my work exploring this unified reality. Let's explore
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: together this one world, a place where mind and matter
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: are united by numbers. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist,
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: was fascinated by the idea of there being one world
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: underlying reality as we see it. He called it the
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: Unus Unus. Mundus, Latin for one world. He believed there
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: is a hidden unity behind everything, a place where your
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: thoughts and the world around you are not separate at all,
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: not united through magic or a fairy tale. The Unus
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Mundus is like a real pattern that connects all things.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: Close to his passing, Jung realized that the pattern of
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: the Unus Mundus spoke not with words, but through symbols
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: and meaningful coincidences, or as he called them, synchronicities. Synchronicity
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: is something we all experience, seeing the same number all
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: over the place, thinking of a friend, and then they
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: suddenly call, or even your dreams reflecting the future. We
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: often write these off as little coincidences, but Jung believed
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: there was much more. He felt synchronicity was a symptom
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: of the Unus Mundus, the one world. But also, Jung
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: felt that the Unus Mundus spoke to us through number.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: In fact, in reference to the Unus Mundus, Jung said,
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: I have a distinct feeling that numbers is a key
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: to the mystery. Now, you've used numbers. You've used them
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: to count or do maths. You were probably taught in
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: school that numbers are tools we use to understand things logically.
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: But history tells a different story. Ancient thinkers saw numbers
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: as more than tools. They saw them as living truths.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: Pythagoras thought numbers made up the universe. Plato believed the
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: soul of the world was built with geometry. And alchemists,
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: they use numbers to guide transformation itself. Quantum physicists, they
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: use numbers to describe a strange reality defying common sense.
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: If anything history teaches, there is always more to number
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: than we first see. Now Jung took numbers seriously. To him,
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: numbers were not just logical tools, they were meaningful symbols.
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: Symbols emerging from the unconscious mind. Explaining their symbolic importance
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: in dreams, synchronicities, myths, visions, religion, spirituality. He thought numbers
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: might be the oldest language the unconscious mind uses to
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: speak to us. For Jung, Numbers held opposites together, being
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: both quantity and quality, both logical and symbolic. Numbers refuse
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: to be categorized. Think about it. One means unity, symbolizing
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: wholeness or loneliness. Two means duality, opposites in conflict or
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: in sync. Three means harmony, a solution perhaps to the
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: tension between one and two. These numbers don't just count things.
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: They mean something. But in reality, numbers never sit alone.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: They interact. They form shapes, dynamics and systems. One of
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: the most surprising patterns made by numbers is something called
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: a fractal. Now a fractal is a shape that repeats
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: itself at every scale. Like a fern, a coastline, a galaxy.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: or even the folding of your own DNA. They repeat
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: over and over again, no matter how close you zoom in.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: And somehow, they're built from very simple rules. But among these,
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: the Mandelbrot set stands apart. Born from a deceptively simple equation,
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: it yields a shape whose border never ends. Zoom in forever,
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: you will find endless spirals, galaxies within galaxies, an interconnected
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: framework between order and chaos. The Mandelbrot set is a
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: special set of complex numbers. derived from a simple iterative formula.
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: It is drawn by repeating a simple formula. Every number
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: we get out, we put back in. Over time, we
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: generate a sequence. Now we create the Mandelbrot set by
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: collecting all values for which the sequence remains stable. But
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: the Mandelbrot set has a secret. The sequences that do
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: not remain stable move to infinity in a mysterious way.
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: When we view these paths to infinity, we generate a
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: new form called the Buddha Brot, a surprising pattern that
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: looks ancient and modern at the very same time. It
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: looks like the Buddha. Hindu deities... the ancient chakras along
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: the spine, and even Egyptian pharaohs. It is not just
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: a geometric shape. Now this is where Jung would have
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: paid attention. Remember, he believed that number itself may possess
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: a symbolic or archetypal quality, indeed a bridge between mind
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: and matter, not metaphorically. Literally. Literally. The boulevard may be
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: just such a bridge, a unifying symbol connecting matter and mind,
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: a symbol perhaps for the Unus Mundus, the one world
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: envisioned by Jung. Indeed, in my work I have uncovered
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: a pattern underlying both the mind and the universe. The
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: boulevard is an archetypal symbol, a pattern emerging from the
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: unconscious mind And this symbol is like no other. It
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: comes from pure number alone. The Buddha Brot is a
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: meaningful coincidence, a synchronicity, a hint that there is a
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: hidden order. Most people will tell you the Buddha Brot
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: was discovered in 1993. But this is just the first
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: time we observed it computationally. Numbers are much older than
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: we are. The Buddha Brot is, in fact, ancient. Across
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: cultures and time, humans have sensed the hidden order of
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: the Buddha Brot. It emerges in art and aspects of culture,
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: addressing boundaries such as the division between earth and heaven,
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: life and death, and mind and matter. Alchemical emblems depicting
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: the philosopher's stones a symbol for the unity of mind
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: and matter.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: Echo?
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: The Buddha Brot. Those who know Jung's work know that
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: he was heavily influenced and fascinated by the alchemists. What
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: would he have made of this? The Tree of Life symbol,
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: which relates to the interplay of mind and matter, echoes
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: the ordered patterns of the Buddha Brot, the very same
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: fractal pattern spontaneously arising across vast time periods around the world.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: Some examples being Mayan, Persian, Indian, European, Assyrian, Egyptian tree
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: of life symbols, all of which echo each other and
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: the Budebrot. The Budebrot lies hidden in ancient architecture from
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: Stonehenge to the Vatican. Both attempts to connect earth to
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: the heavens, to connect matter The Buddha Brot's hidden order
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: may even be secretly embedded in mysterious masterpieces of the
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: Renaissance period. When one looks to psychedelic art, one does
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: not simply see the echoes of the Buddha Brot, no.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: In fact, psychedelic art appears to be the unconscious attempt
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: to express the Buddha Brot order of the Unus Mundus.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: When one awakens to the order of the Buddha-brot, they
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: will find the pattern in the most meaningful places. The
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: Buddha-brot is then an elemental ordering principle of the mind
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: and universe, one of the deepest parts of the unconscious mind,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: a fractal glimpse of the Unus Mundus. It tells us
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: something profound. that the laws of nature are not random,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: that reality is not meaningless, that mind and universe may
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: be singing in harmony. Jung said that numbers might organize
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: the mind. He meant that before consciousness even emerges, number
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: is there. It is not invented. It is discovered, just
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: like your true self. And when your true self awakens,
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: when your mind encounters its own pattern, perhaps you can
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: find your place. There is a part of your story
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: that includes the universe. To look past divisions to the
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: order of the Buddha-brot is to become who you really are,
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: who you were always meant to be. The truth is
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: the Unus Mundus seeks recognition in number, in matter, in symbol.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: Our role is bringing the symbol into the world, building
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: culture around it, healing division, living in harmony with the
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: deeper order. The bullet block, both ancient and new, then
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: becomes a symbol for unification. And now, perhaps more than ever,
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: we really need that. The world is saturated with data,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: Meaningless data. Noise. And your mind cannot survive. Not in
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: this noise. We crave coherence. Narrative. Pattern. And the truth
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: is pattern is there. Waiting. In nature. In mind. In number.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Now this is why art really matters. Indeed why story matters.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: Why symbols and dreams matter. Guiding us when reason fails.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: because they reveal the invisible order, the fingerprint of the
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: Buddha brought upon the world. So, this is the invitation
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: of the Unus Mundus, to see, not just with your eyes,
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: but with your mind, to recognize that your thoughts and
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: the stars are not separate at all, that your longing
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: for wholeness is mirrored in the geometry of a fern,
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: the curl of a galaxy, even in the fractal-shaped folding
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: of your DNA. And when you see this, truly see it,
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: you will awaken. You are no longer a stranger in
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: the world. You are now a participant, a carrier of
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: the pattern, a fractal becoming aware of itself. You are
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: the Buddha brought, discovering itself. So what do we do
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: with this new wisdom? Listen, watch, dream. We take symbols seriously,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: not as fantasy, but as coordinates. We study number, not
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: just for logic, for meaning. And we dare to imagine
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: that behind the chaos of the world there is an order,
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: alive and calling us into alignment. Because the Unus Mundus
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: is not elsewhere, it is here. Always was. And the self,
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: your true self, is not a private possession. It is
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: a node in the greater pattern. It seeks not only
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: to know itself, but to express itself. In action, art, word, image, love.
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: In the end, the Buddha brought Maybe nothing more than math.
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: But to the mind, it is a message. You belong.
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: Your life follows a pattern. You are part of infinite meaning.
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: And that forgotten pattern, ancient, sacred, strange, has been waiting
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: for you to remember.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Remember. This is the third or fourth time I've seen
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: your film. It still makes me tear up. It's beautiful
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: and pungent. It just goes right in with a kind
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: of beauty and truth that I think is astonishing.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I agree with Deb. I think it's just remarkable. And
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering, could you tell us a little bit about
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: maybe about your background and how you got here, how
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: you got interested in this. What's your story?
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, my background is very scientific chemistry. I did a
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: PhD in organic chemistry and stayed in academia for some
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: time in research positions, again, focused on organic chemistry. So yeah, I've,
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: through my formal training, been involved in kind of the
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: empirical aspects scientific method um there's obviously the intriguing overlap
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: between chemistry and jungian psychology which is of course alchemy
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: so it's an intriguing analogy there or perhaps there's something
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: symbolic there um but i did leave academia um now
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: i work as a consultant for researchers so i am
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: still involved in the scientific communities um But I had,
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: up until a number of years ago, never heard of
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: Jung at all. And I was immediately really drawn to
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: his ideas.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: How did you stumble across them?
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: I went through my own talking therapy. So I had
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: my own psychodynamic psychotherapy. And that's how, that's kind of
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: what lit the spark, if you will.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: But then, but I was immediately drawn to his ideas. Um, anyway, they,
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: they all seemed, uh, like the obvious way of explaining
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: the psyche to me. It made complete sense immediately that
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: just like animals, we would have these instinctual patterns of behavior. Um, um,
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: so I, I was, I was really drawn to exploring more. Um,
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: and as, as you guys know, um, The world of
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: Jungian thought is one of complete fascination. We have lots
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: of exciting material to get our teeth into, from stories
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: to symbols to, you know, the intrigue never dies out. So, yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: I became, if you like, obsessed with Jungian thought. And
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: I think one thing that I was particularly interested in
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: was alchemical symbolism, just looking at alchemical emblems and alchemical
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: art and thinking what are they trying to communicate what
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: what aspects of the of the unconscious are are kind
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: of revealing themselves here through alchemical art um and of
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: course analyzing my own dreams as well things like that
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: um but then i stumbled across the uh buddha brought
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: i would say by chance really i i i Don't
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: know how it happened. But as you know, sometimes you
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: can spend time just going from Wikipedia page to another
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: and you come across stuff. And I guess it just
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: happened by chance. But yeah, because I was in the
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: midst of exploring symbology, the Bitterbrock really stood out to me.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: So you're going from Wikipedia page to Wikipedia page, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: then you see this image of the Buddha brat, and
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: you're like, whoa, what is that?
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking, is this, so it looks like
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: a Buddha. Then I'm thinking, well, maybe somebody has kind
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: of modified the image to make it look like a Buddha.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: But then I learned more and more, and no, this
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: purely mathematical thing a visualization of the Mandelbrot set actually
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: just does look like a Buddha. But then, of course,
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: my rational scientific mind is thinking, well, humans do like
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: to see patterns places. So maybe there's something going on
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: here with just pattern seeking or finding meaning when it's
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: not there. But I guess like a moment where I
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: was a bit like, maybe I actually want to look
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: at this more and more. I just decided to zoom
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: into the third eye region of the Buddha Brot. And
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: it struck me as quite a coincidence that it already
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: looks like a Buddha or maybe it looks a bit
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: like Ganesha. But actually, the third eye of the Buddha
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: Brot actually kind of resembles the third eye chakra. It's
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: often described as having two petals. and maybe sometimes with
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: kind of radiating lights upwards. And that was a moment
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: where I was like, well, I'm going to look at
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: this a bit further because that seems like a bit
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: of a coincidence. That's kind of where it started, I guess.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: We have a Patreon account where people have an opportunity
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: to support us, help us keep the lights on, help
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: us keep this great venture up and running. This week,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: We're going to answer a question from a subscriber about
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: whether or not she's ready to get married after a
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: 12-year relationship, or she should perhaps try out some other
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: things so she can feel confident. These are the kinds
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: of questions that we field from our subscriber community. It's
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: super interesting, and we'd love for you to join us.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: It's an amazing journey, and I'm sure you won't be
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: able to explain all the mathematics involved, at least to me.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: But what I appreciate so much is connecting sort of
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: the unconscious to something that we in this culture particularly
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: say is rational. Mathematics, science, you know, so many of
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: the images in the film, illustrating it and bringing it
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: into our more mundane kind of reality that makes it understandable.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: And I'm thinking about Jung, who was accused of sort
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: of being a mystic, and he kept insisting he was
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: a scientist, and he was. But how to unify both
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: of those things, and he strove to bring both of
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: those the collective unconscious, symbols, images, alchemy, and biological, physiological,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: provable science.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and with physics, too.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and physics with Wolfgang Pauli. So, you know, I'm
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: kind of thinking that here it is in your work.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Those two areas are unified, connected.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. That's how I felt about this work. So
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: for me, fractal mathematics is the missing piece of the jigsaw.
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: Jung died in 1961. Fractal mathematics wasn't really formalized until
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: the 80s. There were hints, but it wasn't formalized as
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: this is a thing until the 80s. Benoit Mandelbrot discovered
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: the Mandelbrot set, I think, at least like the mid-70s, 80s,
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: well after Jung died. But I really wonder if Young
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: had lived to see the formalization of fractal mathematics, whether, well,
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: I think it's obvious he would have definitely been intrigued. So, yeah,
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: I wonder whether the Mandelbrot set, the Budebrot, is potentially
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: the missing link here. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: And it's so great that there are thinkers who are
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: sort of taking forward the potential implications of some of
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Jung's insights and doing this kind of important spade work
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: over on the mathematics side. So because, you know, if
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: you think about Jung's life and work, I mean, his
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: interest just sort of broaden and deepen as he gets older.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And some of the things that he was really interested
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: in toward the end of his life were feels so
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: important and tantalizing and relevant to our current plight. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: so I think it's so wonderful that there are thinkers
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: like yourself kind of doing this work. But to back
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: up for a second, could you tell us a little
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: bit about fractals? I have like this much of a
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: sense of what they are and some of the implications.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: So fractals are mathematical objects. I don't think we should
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: go into the deep maths too much, but essentially just
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: think of fractals as self-similar patterns. It doesn't matter how
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: many times you zoom in, you still see that similarity.
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: So they're self-similar patterns at different scales. And I think
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: the easiest fractal type shape to think of is a fern.
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: So if you look at a fern for the first time,
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: you see that fern shape. Then if you look at
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: one of the bits coming off the fern, you see
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: again the fern shape then if you look at one
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: of the bits coming off of the bits of coming
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: off the bits of a fern it's a fern again
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: So you've got that repetition at every single scale, that
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: similarity at every single scale. My Mandelbrot set in particular
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: is just a really simple formula. You plug in, it's
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: called an iterative formula. So you plug in a number,
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: And basically, you get a number out. That number that
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: you get out, you put back in. So that's what
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: we mean by iteration. We repeat what goes out back in.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: It's like a machine, if you will. Just with these
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: really simple rules in the Mandelbrot set, we get what
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: we call a fractal, the Mandelbrot set. And again, we
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: have that kind of self-similarity at multiple scales. In fact,
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: you can zoom into the Mandelbrot set or infinity you
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: can zoom in forever and ever and ever and you
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: will still see um these beautiful fractal shapes you will
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: see things that remind you of mandalas at that border
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: of the mandelbrot set so just just really think of
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: fractals as having this self-similarity and often what's striking about
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: fractals really is is and i think what surprised people
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: early on was hold on, these are really simple rules.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: The Mandelbrot set equation is really simple, but what we
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: get from it is infinite complexity. And that's really what
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: fractals are all about. If you want to see fractals,
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: all you have to do is go to your local park.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: You'll see these amazing fractal patterns everywhere. And that's what
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: Mandelbrot himself noticed. He discovered the Mandelbrot set. And what
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: struck him immediately was this seems to be a good
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: description of everything around me, plant life, coastlines, et cetera.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: So he immediately saw the relevance of fractal mathematics to matter,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: if you will.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: So just trying to sum up, I'm going to wrap
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: my non-mathematically oriented brain around this for a second. So
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: this is.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Patterns that are generated by equations in this iterative process
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: that also sort of describe phenomena in the natural world.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: They appear to be very good at describing phenomena that
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: we see around us. As I say, like the growth
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: of plants, the way that plants grow seems to be fractal-like.
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: And we can use fractals. We have used fractals to
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: model things. plant growth. But once you start looking, you
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: realize fractals are everywhere. And they appear to be the
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: way that nature uses the nature of reality, if you will,
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: to grow. One thing about fractals is that they can
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: be an especially effective way to optimize surface area or
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: optimize energy production. things like that um so they're a
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: convenient way to make order from chaos if you will
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: it's a way that the numbers can can uh organize
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: and and emerge in systems that create these these patterns
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: but of course the next thing to think about is
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: what what relationship does jungian psychology have to fractals well
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: again like please walk into your local church or perhaps
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: go into a Buddhist or Hindu temple, you're likely to
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: see fractal-like symbols, repeating patterns, mosaic-type patterns. All part of
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: spiritual and religious imagery is fractals, which is obviously very intriguing.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: So my question, to be explained a little better for
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: me to understand it, is, the Buddha Brat, that this
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: was discovered by somebody named Melinda Green. And in the film,
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: you overlay this image of the Buddha Brat with all
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: kinds of art symbols from Egypt to Assyria to the
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Mona Lisa. Is there a way to understand how and
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: what this Yes.
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: So I've already introduced the Mandelbrot set. Again, just a
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: really simple iterative formula that happens to create this humanoid
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: type shape, this kind of bulb with the head at
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: the top. But that's just one way of visualizing the
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: Mandelbrot set. Yes, the classic Mandelbrot set that everybody, lots
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: of people will be familiar with. Those are just the
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: sequences that remain bound. So imagine, I'm making up numbers here,
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: but imagine we put one into the equation, perhaps we
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: get five out. Then we can put five into the equation,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: perhaps we get a thousand out. And we can keep
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: going like that and it remains bound. In other words,
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: it doesn't fly off to infinity. But you can imagine
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: some numbers that we put in, actually five goes to
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: a thousand, but then thousand goes to 1,000,003. But actually
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: then 1,000,003 really starts going closer to infinity and it
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: flies off to infinity. So those sequences that fly off
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: to infinity, if you will, they're not part of what
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: we are used to visualizing with the Mandelbrot set. We
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: normally disregard them. What Melinda Green did was she was
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: interested in these pathways that did fly off to infinity
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: and she tracked their pathways. So The Buddha Brot very
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: simply is just the pathways of the Mandelbrot equation that
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: do go off to infinity. And we track those pathways.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: So if you imagine a pathway in the Buddha Brot
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: might spiral and go off and then eventually fly off
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: to infinity. And then we plot lots of these basically.
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: And what Melinda Green was surprised to see was when
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: she did this, Once you looked at enough of these
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: pathways to infinity, then the Budebrot emerges. So, yeah, you
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: would look at the Budebrot and you'd think that must
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: be a really complex mathematical equation to make something like that.
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: But that's what is striking. It's this, well, something appearing
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: to be archetypal, deeply, deeply complex. It's actually from really simple,
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: really simple maths.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking also of the Fibonacci series, which
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: it sounds like there's some similarities, right? Because the Fibonacci
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: series is very, very easy. It's very basic. I think
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: if I recall, it's adding one and one or one
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: and two, I can't remember. But then you take that
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: number and you add the previous number. And that sequence describes, say,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: for example, the way, you know, certain patterns in nature,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: like the way that the center of a sunflower, the
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: seeds are patterned.
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: Definitely. And the Fabanici sequence is fractal-like. So actually, if
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: you start exploring the Mandelbrot set, you'll see those types
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: of spiral. So my theory is that, yes, we've observed
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: these Fabanici-type spirals in history, but perhaps the reason why
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: we've been seeing them everywhere is related to the Mandelbrot set.
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: So it's all originating from the Mandelbrot set.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Ah, that's interesting.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: As is lots of constants we see within the Mandelbrot set.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: So we see pi within the Mandelbrot set itself.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: But also thinking about sacred geometry. Sacred geometry is something
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: that we created to try and perhaps understand our relationship
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: to patterns and their psycho-spiritual relevance. But I wonder whether
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: sacred geometry is an approximation, if you will, of fractal mathematics.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: And again, like you've said, actually at the bottom line,
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: at the base of all of it, is the Mandelbrot
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: set and what we've been measuring is from that.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Because the other thing that's similar about the Fibonacci series
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: is that if you, in a way that I don't
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: fully understand, it describes what's called the golden mean. So
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: this kind of proportion that seems universally appealing that shows
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: up again and again in art and architecture and that
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: kind of thing. And it's described by the Fibonacci series.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: So there's something like just inherent. We respond to it,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: which I think goes to something really interesting in your paper,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: which is you consider these different possible explanations for this phenomenon.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: And one of them is just sort of like pattern recognition.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: that these patterns recur and recur and recur because we
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: have maybe sort of a predisposition to notice them or
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: to find them appealing. In some sense, then, they're kind
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: of a cognitive artifact. There's something in us and about
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: the way that we perceive the world that responds to
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: these patterns in a way that's maybe not particularly meaningful
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: per se, But then there are these other kind of
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: tantalizing possibilities. that instead of it being sort of just
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: an artifact of cognition or perception, that what we're actually
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: seeing is something of the underlying architecture of the universe
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: and of the Unus Mundus. Am I getting that right?
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. I think the more empirical, rationalist view of
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: this work would be interested in exploring, well, has Harry
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: uncovered something to do with the way that we perceive
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: or the way that we process hierarchical structures? And I
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: think lots of people will have lots to say, and
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: perhaps there is something there. But as you've correctly highlighted...
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: We can't ignore the fact that it does also seem
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: to really well fit into lots of Jung's ideas, absolutely.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very much the collective unconscious and his whole theory
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: of archetypes and all of the images in the film
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: from religious traditions, sacred geometry, synchronicities, all of the things
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: that are there. have been intuited by humans for millennia.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: And we, you know, it's been easy as cognition and
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: rationality and the age of enlightenment and all that came
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: about to be a little dismissive about that's sort of
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: mystical or it's intuitive or, but can you prove it?
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: And so here is this very exciting work that you
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: and others have done to do just what lisa said
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: of really describe the underlying order of the cosmos the universe.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: Life us yeah i think i think it is useful
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: to to consider because you've brought up the enlightenment i
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: think it is important to consider our relationship with numbers
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: over time over more recent periods Number has become more
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: and more associated with empirical science. In fact, I think
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: some people probably think of numbers and the science as
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: being hand in hand, two things that really touch upon
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: each other. And, well, yeah, there is some truth in that.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: Empirical sciences use numbers to really help use matter. So
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: we can use numbers to predict the behavior. to try
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: and model the behavior of the way that matter behaves.
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: We can use numbers to create life-saving drugs, absolutely. But
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: our relationship to number has changed over time, really. Numbers
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: are not just logical inventions. Numbers really are something that
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: we have discovered about reality. And I think that's evidence
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: for a few reasons. Well, number is universally relevant. It's
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: relevant to not just life on Earth, but numbers can
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: be used to model the behavior of black holes, planets
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: which are light years away. If numbers were just like
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: a human invention, We might actually expect them to only
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: be good at modeling life on Earth, really. Many different
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: cultures throughout history have stumbled across numbers independently and come
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: to the same conclusions. We really shouldn't think of numbers
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: as something as these logical tools that we've invented. They
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: appear to be, as I say, discovered. Jung viewed numbers
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: as archetypal tools. Not just any symbol, though. He felt
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: that numbers were actually very special. I think he called
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: them the primordial archetypes and central to the ordering of
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: the psyche. Therefore, somehow related to the self, which is
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: the ordering principle of the psyche. So yes, if we
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: can start to think of numbers not as something invented,
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: but as something discovered, we can really kind of change
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: our understanding of what they are. Science has used numbers,
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: but numbers are actually more than just science. And the
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: evidence as well for this is mathematicians throughout history have
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: used intuition to explore numbers. There are a number of
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: accounts of this, and von Franz talks about this in
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: some detail in her book, Number and Time, how mathematicians
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: have often dreamt their solutions to their equations. There's a
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: well-known mathematician called, I apologize if I get the name wrong, Ramanujan,
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: an Indian mathematician. He was well-known for often dreaming solutions
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: to his equations. And there are multiple accounts within the
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: realm of mathematics of mathematicians intuiting their discoveries. But even
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: outside of mathematics, we can think of a very cliche example, Newton,
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: the apple falling from the tree and suddenly he gets reality.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: I think that highlights a truth about our relationship to
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: number that it's not always logical. stepwise. Sometimes it's these
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: intuitive leaps that help indicate numbers are related to our
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: unconscious mind.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: You know, Jung's concept of the self, which can never
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: just be translated into language, that there was an underlying
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: ordering principle, underlying ordering energy that undergirds our being, our existence,
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: our rational mind. And in a sense, you know, that
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: is what you're talking about, I think, with regard to number.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: But the part I want to explore, maybe add, is
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: how very, very beautiful this is. So that it's not,
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: you know, number sounds pretty abstract.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: It's like, really?
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: But It's beautiful. The fractals are beautiful. The galaxies, the
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: photos we have of them, are beautiful. And there's a
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: kind of love there, a kind of eros, that everything fits,
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: everything moves. It's not random. And the feeling I had
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: when I first watched the film, and somewhere it says
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: it's discovered, like the true self, of, Oh, I get it.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: I see it. And the feeling part is incredibly moving
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: and reassuring, I hope, for the world. Because for me,
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: this changes everything. This is one of those things. It
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: changes things.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: And I think that feeling is something that von Franz
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: was really trying to get out in her book, Number
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: and Time, where She's trying to explain that numbers are
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: not mere quantity, that they are quality as well. In fact,
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: that dual character that numbers are able to hold is
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: the very reason why I think Jung was so drawn
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: to them. Because he saw these things that are logical
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: constructs that scientists are using that quantum physicists are using,
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: but these archetypal symbols as well. So number is deeply,
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: deeply mysterious. How can it be both of these things
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: at the same time? And what you're touching upon there
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: is that feeling function related to numbers that we were
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: told in school perhaps doesn't exist, but maybe actually there's
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: a lot of psycho-spiritual relevance to numbers. And we need
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: to really rethink about what exactly numbers are.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's always comforted me somewhat that Jung
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: was reportedly not very good at math. But I think
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: you're really onto something. I mean, that the fact that math,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that numbers can describe the world at the kind of
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: macro level and at the subatomic level, that what's true
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: for You know, my calculating how much money is in
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: my bank account so that I can pay my taxes,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: those same numbers describe a black hole out there or
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: can be used to divine perhaps the beginning of the cosmos.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: It is, there is, you know, it says something about
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: numbers being in some sense kind of absolutely true.
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: Objective truth. Yeah. Therefore, archetypal.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Part of the sort of fabric of the universe.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: So it is very exciting. Let's talk for a minute
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: about Unus Mundus, because it's a difficult subject. We've tackled
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: it a little bit before, I think, on the podcast,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: but What is the Unus Mundus?
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: I wish Jung had written a whole book on the
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: Unus Mundus, but we don't have that. We have bits
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: and pieces here and there. It's an alchemical term. I
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: don't think that it was first introduced by Dorn, but
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: Dorn is the alchemist that Jung discusses. The Unus Mundus,
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: think of it as an archetype of pure unity. it's
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: where psyche and matter are no longer separate. They are
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: just simply one and the same. So within the Unus Mundus,
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: there's no division. If you like, there's nothing. We might
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: call the Unus Mundus the void. But if we looked
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: to Hindu mythology, we might compare the Unus Mundus to
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: something like Brahman. So Brahman is i and forget i
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: do apologize i do apologize if i'm not getting brahman
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: completely right um for our hindus listening who feel that
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: i've not quite got it right but i think brahman
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: we can really call it um like pure consciousness or
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: uh this formless unity before um creation even even is
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: is is thought of um Or in Chinese philosophy, we
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: might compare the Unus Mundus to maybe Tao, T-A-O, which
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: again is just this formless unity before creation. Or we
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: might want to just call the Unus Mundus God. It's
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: just something that is completely ineffable. We exist in our egos,
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: understanding the world through duality, separation. And perhaps the Unus
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: Mundus is just something absolutely ineffable that we can't even
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: really imagine. But yeah, for me, the Unus Mundus is
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: archetypal and it does appear to emerge in lots of
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: different spiritual systems.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: And so part of the implication is that we perceive
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: ourselves as distinct. For example, we go about our day
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: and for all intents and purposes, we think we are
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: these completely separate, distinct individuals that don't have this sort
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: of fundamental connection with the rest of existence. So we
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: act as individuals, that's kind of ego consciousness, but the
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: implication of Unus Mundus is that we are actually at one.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: It's a kind of co-extensive consciousness. Is that how you
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: understand it?
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you can think of the Unus Mundus as an interconnected,
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, you could say an interconnected matrix for reality.
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: It's kind of the cliche spiritual experience, right? Someone takes
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: LSD or, I don't know, they go on a trip
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: to India and they realize, hold on, everything is connected
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: um and that is that's really uh if you like
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: that is that um experience of the archetype of the
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: unus mundus that the um or synchronicity synchronicity if you
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: ever have like a crazy synchronicity um you might you
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: might sudden it might dawn upon you oh my god
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: like something's going on here that i didn't realize was
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: part of reality And then, of course, your ego rushes
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: you into thinking, oh, no, I'm sure there's a rational
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: explanation for this, as we all do, because it's actually
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: a bit scary. It's a bit scary to encounter a
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: synchronicity and to think, well, it's scary to the ego
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: because it's something you can't control. There's a higher order.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I think people experience it, Unus Mundus, but
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: we haven't maybe got a name for it in common language, maybe.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering, and I'm trying to think too about how
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: to even phrase this, about how all of this relates
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: to human developmental psychology. And, you know, we're born as one.
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: Ego has not yet separated from the sense of self.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: So we have these wonderful newborn babies. And then we
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: have the so-called terrible twos when that little toddler says
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: no and starts to recognize I'm separate from you and
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: I might not want to eat that or to do
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: what you say I should do. just as a way
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: of experimenting with, you know, I'm my own person. And
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: so it goes, you know, all the way through all
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: kinds of various stages that many people have delineated. But
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: then I'm thinking about how maybe one of the tasks
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: facing humankind is once we've differentiated the opposites into ego,
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: rational mind, frontal cortex, and unconscious, personal unconscious, and the
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: collective unconscious. Is that a task that relates to some
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: of this, of how to get to the third stage
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: of a reconciliation, of this realization that we've just touched
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: on a bit, that everything is connected, that we are
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: part of a greater whole, that this plane of existence,
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: if you will, forces us to separate things into polarities.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: But how do we get to the next stage of,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, you know, through a synchronicity, through a dream,
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: through a symbol, through your work?
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think that feeling of interconnectedness, that encounter
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: with the unus mandus, if you will, I think we
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: can consider it as a latter stage of individuation. Um,
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: it makes me think of the crown chakra where, um,
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: one experiences, um, or is close to experiencing Nirvana, which is,
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: which is akin to the Unus Mundus. It's, it's, it's nothingness,
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: if you will. So the folding into the Unus Mundus is,
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: is even beyond enlightenment. Um, and I don't know if
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: Jung talks about this in, in much detail, but, um,
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: I think as you approach those latter stages of individuation,
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: synchronicity is, I think, reported to be more and more
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: common because it's quite literally the divisions between psyche and
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: matter in your own life are beginning to dissolve, which
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: is a very scary concept. But I think Not the
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: reason why, but it's important that it's a latter stage
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: of individuation because it would be too overwhelming for the
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: earlier stages where we're focused on more personal things, personal shadow,
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: finding your anima and all of that. Now, the chakra
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: system is something to think about in the context of
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: the Buddha Brot because for Jung, the chakra system was
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: a projection of individuation onto the body. So as we ascend,
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: it's the ascent. It's the Kundalini ascent up the spine.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: And I think, if you like, the archetype of ascent
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: itself is really relevant to the Buddha Brot. Because my
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: theory is that the Buddha Brot is potentially a mathematical
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: map for individuation. It's actually what the ancient yogis were
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: intuiting with the chakra system, that there is somehow the
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: development of consciousness from complete, like you say, complete unity,
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: being in the womb, the Ouroboric stage, and then the
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: working with duality, the working with the shadow, the anima.
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: But then there are latter stages, which are more related
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: to self-realization, It's often connected with one's true voice, the
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: throat chakra. Then, of course, we've got the famous third eye,
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: enlightenment itself, seeing completely beyond duality. And the Buddha Brot
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: seems to really echo the chakra system. But the difference is,
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: of course, the Buddha Brot is nothing more or less
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: than pure number. I do hold back on saying these
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: kind of big statements because people do push back. but
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: perhaps the buddha brought is is is actually a mathematically
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: precise model for individuation perhaps the ascent of the buddha
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: brought is somehow i'm not saying i know how but
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: somehow um a mathematical framework for the emergence of duality, union, etc. Therefore,
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: we have the first really mathematical map for individuation. The
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: most important thing about the Buddha Brot for me, as
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: Eric Newman will tell us, individuation isn't just a personal journey.
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: There is collective individuation. The Buddha Brot would allow us
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: to see the potential for, perhaps, the potential for human
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: psychological collective growth as one organism, if you will, one
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: organism as a metaphor. And we would have to say, well,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: where on the Buddha Brot are we now? Where are we?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: Where are we as a collective? I would say straight away,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: we are ego. We are complete and utter ego. And
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: Jung would agree. We have rejected that past unity perhaps
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: we did have. That past, you know, that Egyptian mind.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: That's long gone. But what the Buddha brought perhaps could
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: tell us. But if we had understood perhaps the ancient yogis,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: they would have also told us. We're moving towards collective self-realization,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: collective enlightenment, and even beyond, whatever that would look like.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: I'm sure right now it's beyond our imaginations. But how
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: do you get from ego to self-realization? Well, you guys
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: know this already. It's about shadow integration. It's about finding
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: the soul, all of that. And perhaps what the Buddha
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: brought would tell us is what we need to do next.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: Or the potential for humanity is embedded within the Buddha brought.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: So one of the things that comes up for me
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: when you say that is, you know, the Egyptian mind
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: is long gone and we're all ego. Yes, we're very,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: very much centered in the rational. But interestingly, we've come
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: full circle with the Buddha brought, right? Because because there's
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: this rational practice of mathematics that discovered this, which brings
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: us back to the non-rational and perhaps allows for some
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: kind of integration between those two kind of systems, mind
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: systems of the rational and the non-rational.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that makes me think of two things. Now, this
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: probably is an incorrect quote, and I don't know if
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: it's a real quote, I do remember reading somewhere that
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: Jung said that ideas come into the collective when the
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: collective are ready to receive them. But it also makes
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: me think of compensation. For me, the self only, I
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: don't want to use the crude word mechanism. If we
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: did have to say that the self worked through a mechanism,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: I would say it's that of compensation. It compensates for
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: the waking attitude. And perhaps we can apply that collectively,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: that we've now hit the absolute climax of rational, egoic,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: collective life. And the Buddha Brot serves as a compensation
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: to really throw us off and to say, number is
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: not just logic. Look at the archetypal, symbolic logic. As
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: Deborah's highlighted, the feeling function of numbers. So yeah, that's
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: an interesting thing to think about, definitely.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. Yeah, no, that very much is what Jung
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: talked about. And so that starts to lean into, I think,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: my next question, which is, what do you see the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: implications of your work on this being? Like, where does
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: this lead us? Where would you like it to lead us?
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: Well, I think Jung already was supposed to have told
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: the world that religions had a shared basis. He already
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: laid the foundation for human unification, for absolute peace, because
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: his work, put it into one sentence, his work revealed
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: that religious systems at their core, at their foundation, were
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: based on the same archetypal truths. That's at least my understanding. Now,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: of course, the way that religion has come about, there
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: are now political, economic, God knows what else, other factors
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: into how a religion is manifest in the world. But
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: if you truly understand Jung, you'll probably feel that, yeah,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: he's at least trying to tell us that there's at
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: least lots and lots more similar to religions in their
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: foundational level than differences. But the Buddha Brot really spells
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 5: it out for us. It's really saying we are literally
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: all the same and the foundations for what we all
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: believe are centered around this ordering principle. So I wonder
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: whether the Buddha Brot could be quite unifying in that sense.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: Like even numbers are, are telling us that we're all,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: not all the same. It's not actually the right words
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: because we are all individuals, but we all, I think
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: of it like this, all fern plants are different. Every
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: fern is different, of course, based upon where it grows,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: what it's been exposed to. And we should celebrate the
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: individuality of every fern, but the way that every fern
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: grows is based upon the same fractal principles. There's a
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: shared commonality between all ferns. Perhaps is a nice kind
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: of analogy to humans. Perhaps we have all this, the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: Buddha brought is kind of foundational to all of us
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: and that's what we share. Yes, of course, life is
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: very different depending upon where you grow and a million
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: other things, but there is that shared commonality between all humans.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: So that's something I'm interested in exploring. But I think
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: the implications for the Buddha Brot could potentially be inconceivable
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: if this could be an established truth within the empirical
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: science world, which I think will be an uphill battle.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: But it teaches us to think about numbers very differently.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: And therefore, everything that science has been working towards does
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: have now this thread of meaning and symbol. And where
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: do we even go with that? I don't know. But
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: it raises lots of important discussions to be had.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: I'm hoping that your work will at least lead many,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: many people to be disturbed. And then to hold the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: tension of the opposites, a great famous Jungian principle of
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: how do we, when we are confronted with two things
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: that are unreconcilable, irreconcilable, of rather than tilting into one
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: or the other, because this challenges our egoic stance. And
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: So what do we do with that? Well, we can
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: say this is just a bunch of hogwash, forget about it.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: These mathematicians go off on the wild side. Or we
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: can say, oh my gosh, this is really disturbing. I
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: don't quite really get it. I don't know what this
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: really means. And hold that tension, which I think in
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: today's world, in our collective here in the States, if
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: we could just hold the tension of a lot of opposites,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: that would lead to number the third thing, which is
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: the solution that transcends the opposites. And I wonder if
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: that's a little taste, every time we can do this
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: in our lives, a little taste of the Unus Mundus,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: little taste of something bigger, little taste of something that
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: visited us or We intuited it or somehow an idea
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: came in or a dream came in. So I hope
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: you are challenging us to go, oh, my God, this
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: makes no sense. But it really does make sense.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: I think something, yeah, because you've kind of raised there
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: the ego response to this work. And I think that's
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: really important because we're quite comfortable. with certain aspects of number.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: I think modern Western man is very comfortable if I
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: said to them, how do you feel about the idea
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: that numbers model the behavior of black holes? Yeah, it
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: seems good. It seems reasonable. What if I told you
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: that numbers dictate the growth of plants? Yeah, yeah, I
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: can see that. That seems reasonable. So we're happy accepting
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: that numbers govern everything around us, from black holes light
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: years away to plants growing on your desk. But if
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: I said, what about if aspects of your behavior, of
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: the way that you feel, were also governed by number?
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: The ego... wants to immediately shut that down because it
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: means giving up order and power to something higher. And
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 5: that's just the classic ego response. So that response, I
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: hope I get lots of messages from people saying, rejecting
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: this because that would tell me actually that I've erupted
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: something in the ego here. And that would only validate
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: my work further. But yeah, it's really interesting to think
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: about the ego's relationship to number because we've used numbers
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: for power. We've used numbers to manipulate matter, to build skyscrapers,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: to build, well, let me say it, to build nuclear weapons.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: We've used numbers for power and control. And if the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: Buddha brought is compensating for anything, then perhaps it's compensating for,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: for that, uh, the, the ego's relationship to number for
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: control and power.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah. But there's such a promise in this. Um, and
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: I'm just, I'm using your, your own words of, uh,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: that the true self, uh, seeks recognition and that there
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: is a deeper order, uh, that, bids us to come
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: and find alignment with it. There's an antidote to aloneness
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: and emptiness and meaninglessness, that we belong to something greater.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: And I think there is an absolutely beautiful, inclusive truth
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: here that is compelling. So it's not just an idea.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: There's a way of being that includes listening and watching
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: and dreaming and appreciating the synchronicities that I think is
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: very attracting. And that's why it's worth engaging in the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: challenge between what our rational mind can conceive and something more.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it seems to me at the very
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: least your work invites us, like inspires awe and wonder.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: And any time that we are in that state where
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: we're awestruck, we're in the realm of the relativization of
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: the ego. Like you said a minute ago, like maybe
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: I don't really understand the world as well as I
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: thought I did. Maybe there's something really different going on
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: out here. And I really, I think I'm just echoing
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: what Deb said, but in your video, you basically talk
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: about this sense of meaning that can arise when we
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: feel like we are a part of an ordered universe,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: an ordered cosmos. So that at a minimum is quite something.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: How did you go about kind of analyzing, collecting and
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: analyzing the images. How did you decide which images to
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: pick or how did that come up for you?
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: Now, I'm really lucky in my consultancy work. I get
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: to travel quite a lot. So during the course of
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: this work, I've been to India, South America, the Middle East,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: the US.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 5: And yeah, because I've been interested in symbolism, it just
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: means I've been going to lots of temples and things
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 5: like that.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: I was picturing you doing it all at the British Museum.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: No, although one example was at the British Museum, the
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: Assyrian wild tree. I went to see that one in person.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: But I think, I can't say it all came around
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: in a scientific way. Some of it probably could be
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: regarded as just coincidence, but I came across certain examples.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 5: But at the same time, it's not all just random things.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: For me, all of my examples tie to the theme
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: of either cosmic order or the Unus Mundus or just
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 5: the breaking down of ego kind of boundaries. So for me,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: the examples are non-random. But yeah, they just came about, honestly.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 5: I can't give you a scientific method that I used.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: Did you find that you just started seeing it everywhere?
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah, absolutely. On garden fences. I had a crazy
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 5: moment where I was just laying in bed meditating. Now,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 5: this would be me probably overthinking it, but I looked
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: up and the way that my light lamp had been
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: turned on and something on the wall, the way that
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: it was projecting a shadow was like a particular part
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: of the Buddha Brot. I thought, geez, geez, that's a synchronicity.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I see it. I see it. I see
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: it lots. Absolutely. And I'm sure like if you start
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: kind of looking yourself at the Buddha Brot and the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: various different forms up the spine, you will start to
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: appreciate lots of spiritual art, perhaps more so like Buddhist
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: and Hindu, tends to start with like a circular type shape.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: And then often in the middle, you will get a
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 5: teardrop shape. And then perhaps above the teardrop, you'll have
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: a circle with lines radiating at kind of these angles.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: And then perhaps you'll have something at the top related
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 5: to like a third eye type shape. Start to see
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: this type of this Buddha Brot geometry in lots of art.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: And you'll also see it now, probably when you look
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: at psychedelic art, you'll just see the Buddha brought.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: I thought that was so interesting because I know I
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: remember reading, I can't remember where now, but so some
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: researchers looking at psychedelic experience, particularly with psilocybin, the quote
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: was something like, we've discovered the collective unconscious because psychedelic
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: experiences tend to generate the imagery that gets generated or experienced.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: in these states is so similar from person to person.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well, there are the archetypes. So again,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: it's like, are we looking, are we getting a glimpse
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: at some of the underlying architecture of things? And so
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: it's very, very interesting that psychedelic art also corresponds with
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: the Buddha pride.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. Jung didn't talk about psychedelics,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 5: did he? I don't think.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: He did a little bit, actually. He was pretty skeptical.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: There's a really great, great quote I can find where
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: he talks about why would you want to go see
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: where the colors of the world are made? He uses
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: a great, great analogy like this, but he's not really
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: sure it's a good, you know, he says, like, don't
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: we get enough of these sort of intrusions from the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: unconscious that, you know, no thank you is kind of
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: what he said.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: Well, after what he had been through, what the unconscious
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 5: had thrown him.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: I can understand that.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: But also it's sort of not enough to just dive
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: into the unconscious without really making meaning of it, without
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: integrating this kind of thing. It's really the work of
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: development and consciousness rather than the quick fix. Oh, I
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: had this great trip. I saw wonderful things. That doesn't
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: necessarily advance development. Probably it depends on the individual, depends
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: on how any experience is used. But individuating is a
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: long process that requires attention, commitment, and work.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: How else are you going to integrate shadow and face shadow, really?
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 4: You know, no psychedelic experience can do that work for you.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: And that's, according to Jung, that is step one, is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: confront your own personal shadow.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree. There's a lot of exciting work going
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: on here. But individuation is a long, hard journey, and
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: you can't take a pill. And do all the hard work, really.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: And what's next for you with this? Are you working
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: on something else? Do you want to take it further?
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I definitely want to take this further. So I'm
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 5: still at the early stages of of kind of getting
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 5: my work out there today's part of that um I
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 5: still have a full-time job um so I'm hoping to
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 5: to get support um so that I can build my
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: own platform and see where this takes me um what
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: I'd love to do is interview interview those who work
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: in psychedelic art um or perhaps those who just work
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: in spiritual-related art, and try to understand the process of
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: creating psychedelic art, and how these predictable fractal forms might
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 5: come about. Is it completely spontaneous, an emergence of these
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: Buddha-brot-type shapes in psychedelic art, or is there a feeling
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 5: related to it, or something like that? But yeah, I'm I'm, yeah,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: seeking support. So if anybody wants to search for my Patreon,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: they can support me that way. But I intend to
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: follow this on for decades. This is not something I
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 5: can just leave now.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: I have an idea. Here's my intention, and I'm going
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: to put this out. I have lots of family visiting,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: and I'm going to show them your film. I'm going
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: to say, okay, everybody, sit down. Listen up, look on,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: and then we're going to talk about it. It's very simple,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: but I think it's compelling. There's a truth there that we,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: I think anyone, we have that, oh my gosh, I
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: recognize this, I get it. Oh my God, that's right.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: That same feeling that we've had a million times when
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: we see something that we recognize, we recognize it. Of like,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, I knew that, but I didn't know it
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: this way.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: But as soon as I saw it, I got it.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: So I think intuition and feeling and looking at your film,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: we can all invite people to come take a look.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: Let's think about this. Let's talk about this. What do
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: you think? It's a whole new, wonderful, recognizable idea in
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: the world. I think it's very big.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, another thing I'd like to work on
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 5: is I've obviously explored the Buddha Brot as an outer
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 5: image quite a lot in art and culture. But actually,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 5: another thing I haven't explored is the Buddha Brot as
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 5: an inner image. And I have had anecdotal reports, like
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 5: just a small number of people email me and say, yeah,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: I saw this. I had a dream. I opened a
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 5: door and I saw something like the Buddha Brot. And
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: I think some people in psychedelic experiences as well. encounter
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: these Buddha-brot type entities. So I think if we did
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 5: encounter something like the Buddha-brot in a dream, we'd maybe
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: just say, oh, I saw the Buddha. And maybe in
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: the East, that happens a lot. Maybe people do have
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 5: dreams of encountering Buddha-type images in dreams. But I'd like
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: to know more about those dreams. Was it actually more
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: related to the Buddha-brot than perhaps we anticipated? That'd be
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: something interesting. to, to, to explore.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: Well, that's really fascinating. And we will, uh, put a
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: link in our show notes to, uh, your, your Patreon and, uh, your,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: your paper and the video so that, that people can,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: can take this forward.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: Well, thank you so much for having me. I hope
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 5: to be a part of this, um, journey together. Maybe
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 5: like you guys have inspired me a lot in, in
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 5: kind of, I've been on lots of long flights. Um,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 5: listening to you guys. So you've been a part of
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 5: the journey. Honestly, you have been an important part of
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 5: the journey. So this feels very much shared.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: That's great. Well, we're glad to be on this journey.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I certainly feel that the podcast has somehow
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: tapped into something that the collective needs. And I always say,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: it's not me, it's Jung and his ideas. And Somehow,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, you were talking a minute ago, Deb,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: about recognizing, and Harry, you were talking about your experience
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: the first time you encountered Jung's ideas. And sometimes what I, someone,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: I'll be talking to someone and they'll describe their initial
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: reaction when they started learning about Jung. And the way
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: that I think about it is you realize that you're
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: hearing your native tongue being spoken, but you didn't even
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: know that that was it. But suddenly it's just like, well, yes,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: I know all of this. That's certainly how I felt
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: when I came across it. It's like, well, yes, you
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: just feel the truth of it.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and learning Jungian psychology is like learning nothing else
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 5: because you're learning an intuitive way of thinking about reality.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 5: So it's a feeling of things fitting into place. It's
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 5: not the feeling of learning.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: That's great. I love that.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: Learning Jung becomes an individual journey. So it's not like
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: learning anything else.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it sounds like that was very much your
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: experience working on this project too, that things just sort
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: of fell together.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 5: Well, what's crazy, what does blow my mind is during
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: the process of individuation, I think an aspect of the
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 5: self is supposed to reveal itself to you, regardless of
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: how big or small that is. I mean, of course,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: part of a hero's journey is returning with... something with
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 5: it's often just wisdom. But my own personal journey of
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 5: individuation has been perhaps uncovering an aspect of the self
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 5: that now through you, I am sharing to the collective.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 5: So it's simply a part of the hero's journey, literally
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: returning with the gold. It's also the alchemical process. going
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: through the hard work, the burning, the coagulation. But perhaps
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 5: there's a glimmer here of the stone that, again, now
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: enters and manifests into the collective. So for me, it's
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 5: pretty mind-blowing.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: Well, again, we're so happy to be on this journey
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: with you. And thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for inviting me.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: To be continued.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisjungianlife.com. If
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode, give us five stars and a
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: good review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: your podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and make sure
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: to click the notification bell to be alerted whenever we
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: upload videos. And keep up with all things TJL by
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: following us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.