5. Archetypes

Some words are alluring. In a strangely sensual configuration of letters, they draw the eye and seduce the mind into contemplation. Archetype, I think, is one of those words. Architecturally speaking, the arch is pleasing to the eye; etymologically speaking, it is soundly constructed. Being a compound word, its structure and foundation are doubly solid, its metaphoric content consistent with its character and meaning.

When a word such as this comes to mind, (via our eyes or ears), the brain presents a usually subconscious collage of all words that contain similar parts, in this case, “arc,” “arch,” and “type.” Almost instantly, we may get a feel for the word for even if we cannot offer dictionary-calibre definitions, we are usually able to understand words within their context.

If we look at all the words that begin with “arch”, we get the impression of something being spanned, from here to there or from there to here (Arc de Triumph), and maybe of something very old (archaeology). An idea of something beautiful, such as archangel might pop into our minds. “Type” tends now to be a categorizing word (a certain type of person, a type of plant). But it also means, “to strike” such as the way that old typewriter keys struck the page, creating an ink-filled impression on the paper. In this sense, “type” is more than a mere category; it describes a template, an actual mould, or impression upon Reality.

The ancient Greeks used the prefix of such words as archaikos, the primitive, primary; archegonos, the first of a species; archaios, ancient (even back then, there was a word for ancient); archaizein, to copy the ancient; etc., and combined it with tupos or typos, the word (also Greek) meaning impression. Archetype is a double-whammy word that is what it sounds like: a prototype, a unique form or basic blueprint upon which millions of valid variations may be based—an original idea that gives rise to many tangible expressions or manifestations. An archetype is an impression, ideal or first die that is struck, or comes forth into the cosmos to exist as a reference point, and as a mould upon which further structures can be cast.

Archetypes and Evolution

Plato (427–347 B.C. or B.C.E.) suggested that there are fundamental forms, pure originating prototypes upon which everything in the world is patterned. Beauty, he believed, first existed as pure moral beauty, with all other sensual beauty being a tangible reflection of and tribute to it. Psychologist Carl Jung revived the idea over two thousand years later, referring to these forms as archetypes. In that sense, evolution is a continuous series of physical metaphors, based on a (potentially) infinite combination of archetypes.

• Geometry describes the mathematical appearance of reality, which is built upon constructional ideals, the circle being considered the most primary geometric archetype.

Many manifestations represent every form. The spiral, for instance, occurs in the seed pattern of a sunflower, in pinecones, the horns of an antelope or a ram, the shell of a nautilus, or the rotary propeller in certain bacteria, as well as being the shape of our galaxy, the Milky Way (and others, such as Andromeda). Artist, mystic and poet William Blake painted the spiral into “Jacob's Ladder” and more recently James Watson and Francis Crick visualized DNA's structure as a double helix (like a spiral staircase) (thanks in great part to Rosalind Franklin’s notes).

As Creation continually blooms, everything that has a successful run in existence becomes a future possibility. In fact, there’s no reason not to suppose that the moment even a thought is considered, that thought and its interpretations become available to anyone and everyone, for the elements that were used to form the thought have now been put together in tangible reality, creating a trodden path, or an impression upon Reality. The thought you contemplate at this precise moment is—when it gets right down to a subatomic realm—a single snapshot of the changing patterns of waves and particles.

While thought is facilitated by the brain (in the tangible, sensual, three-dimensional world), a complex pattern of atomic and subatomic interactions flourishes on unseen levels of reality—in a different time in a sense, as well as space. We are rarely appreciative of this and other aspects of our existence because we have never needed to be; neither our survival nor our pleasure depended on such awareness. Both were ensured within the limits of our human senses, which are tuned-in to the frequencies of rainbows, bird songs, thunderstorms and whispers, and whose rhythms are measured in terms of dusk and dawn, lunar months, and the ebb and flow of seasons.

Patterns of atomic interaction “don't exist” as far as any of us are concerned in day-to-day reality, for their frequencies (oscillations or vibrations) are far, far too fast, others, much too slow, for us to perceive. We cannot see them, hear them, taste, touch, or smell them (at that state of being). However, they do exist, and since science has included this level in its repertoire of creations and interferences for a very long time, we will be better off once we can all accept the metaphoric reality of these unseen aspects of existence. If we all realize that even what we think about, has an actual tangible effect on reality, we may treat even the thoughts that swirl through our own minds with respect. Then, even if the idea of a spiritually based “conscience” is sacrificed sometimes at the altar of logic and technological progress, we will still have a concrete reason to take great care with what we contemplate, imagine, and choose.

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