It is often said that in today’s modern and postmodern world, the forces of darkness are upon us. But I think not; in the Dark and the Deep there are truths that can always heal. It is not the forces of darkness but of shallowness that everywhere threaten the true, and the good, and the beautiful, and that ironically announce themselves as deep and profound. It is an exuberant and fearless shallowness that everywhere is the modern danger, the modern threat, and that everywhere nonetheless calls to us as savior.

We might have lost the Light and the Height; but more frightening, we have lost the Mystery and the Deep, the Emptiness and the Abyss, and lost it in a world dedicated to surfaces and shadows, exteriors and shells, whose prophets lovingly exhort us to dive into the shallow end of the pool head first.

But with the rise of modern science—associated particularly with the names of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Newton, Kelvin, Clausius—this great unified and holistic worldview began to fall apart, and fall apart in ways, it is clear, that none of these pioneering scientists themselves either foresaw or intended.

But although the methods of physics and biology were similar, their results were fundamentally incompatible, saddled, as Laszlo put it, with “the persistent contradiction between a mechanistic world slated to run down and an organic world seeming to wind up.”

But with the separation of the physiosphere and the biosphere (due to their two different arrows of time), the links in the entire Chain began to fall into alienated and seemingly unrelated spheres—dead matter versus vital body versus disembodied mind.

The closing of the gap between the physiosphere and the biosphere came precisely in the rather recent discovery of those subtler and originally hidden aspects of the material realm that, under certain circumstances, propel themselves into states of higher order, higher complexity, and higher organization. In other words, under certain circumstances matter will “wind itself up” into states of higher order, as when the water running down a drain suddenly ceases to be chaotic and forms a perfect funnel or whirlpool. Whenever material processes become very chaotic and “far from equilibrium,” they tend under their own power to escape chaos by transforming it into a higher and more structured order—commonly called “order out of chaos.”

The new sciences dealing with these “self-winding” or “self-organizing” systems are known collectively as the sciences of complexity—including General System Theory (Bertalanffy, Weiss), cybernetics (Wiener), nonequilibrium thermodynamics (Prigogine), cellular automata theory (von Neumann), catastrophe theory (Thom), autopoietic system theory (Maturana and Varela), dynamic systems theory (Shaw, Abraham), and chaos theories, among others.

I do not mean to minimize the very real differences between these various sciences, or the great advances that the more recent sciences of complexity (especially self-organizing systems and chaos theories) have made over their predecessors. But since my aim is very general, I will refer to them collectively as systems theory, dynamic systems theory, or evolutionary systems theory.

They claim, in other words, that “everything is connected to everything else”—the web of life as a scientific and not just religious conclusion.

And so systems theorists tend to say: within each level, heterarchy; between each level, hierarchy.

In any developmental or growth sequence, as a more encompassing stage or holon emerges, it includes the capacities and patterns and functions of the previous stage (i.e., of the previous holons), and then adds its own unique (and more encompassing) capacities. In that sense, and that sense only, can the new and more encompassing holon be said to be “higher” or “deeper.”

As Hegel first put it, and as developmentalists have echoed ever since, each stage is adequate and valuable, but each deeper or higher stage is more adequate and, in that sense only, more valuable (which always means more holistic, or capable of a wider response).

That is normal or natural holarchy, the sequential or stagelike unfolding of larger networks of increasing wholeness, with the larger or wider wholes being able to exert influence over the lower-order wholes. And as natural, desirable, and unavoidable as that is, you can already start to see how holarchies can go pathological. If the higher levels can exert influence over the lower levels, they can also overdominate or even repress and alienate the lower levels. And that leads to a host of pathological difficulties, in both the individual and society at large.

Thus Riane Eisler, herself a rather staunch champion of heterarchy, nonetheless emphatically notes that “an important distinction should be made between domination and actualization hierarchies. The term domination hierarchies describes hierarchies based on force or the express or implied threat of force. Such hierarchies are very different from the types of hierarchies found in progressions from lower to higher orderings of functioning—such as the progression from cells to organs in living organisms, for example. These types of hierarchies may be characterized by the term actualization hierarchies because their function is to maximize the organism’s potentials. By contrast, human hierarchies based on force or the threat of force not only inhibit personal creativity but also result in social systems in which the lowest (basest) human qualities are reinforced and humanity’s higher aspirations (traits such as compassion and empathy as well as the striving for truth and justice) are systematically suppressed.”20

Thus, pathological heterarchy means not union but fusion; not integration but indissociation; not relating but dissolving. All values become equalized and homogenized in a flatland devoid of individual values or identities; nothing can be said to be deeper or higher or better in any meaningful sense; all values vanish into a herd mentality of the bland leading the bland.

Why is the finding of value in the world inherent in the human situation? And since, even if we decide to value everything equally, that involves rejecting value systems that do not, why is some sort of ranking unavoidable? Why are qualitative distinctions built into the fabric of the human orientation? Why is trying to deny value itself a value? Why is denying ranking itself a ranking? And given that, how can we sanely and consciously choose our unavoidable hierarchies, and not merely fall into the ethics of unacknowledgment and suppression and inarticulacy?

Thus, for example, the following from Ilya Prigogine: After quoting Ivor Leclerc, who says, “In our century we are suffering the consequences of the separation of science and philosophy which followed upon the triumph of Western physics in the 18th century,” Prigogine goes on to say: “However, I believe that the situation today is much more favorable in the sense that the recent rediscovery of time [i.e., irreversibility] leads to a new perspective. Now the dialogue between hard sciences on one side, human sciences and philosophy on the other, may become again fruitful as it was during the classic period of Greece or during the 17th century of Newton and Leibniz”—this being exactly the point after which what we might call the “great fracture” (between life and matter, or more accurately, interiority and exteriority) occurred. Nobel Prize conversations, Saybrook, 1985, p. 121.

1. Reality as a whole is not composed of things or processes, but of holons. Composed, that is, of wholes that are simultaneously parts of other wholes, with no upward or downward limit. To say that holons are processes instead of things is in some ways true, but misses the essential point that processes themselves exist only within other processes. There are no things or processes, only holons.

This [i.e. that everything is a holon and both whole and part] is important because it prevents a totalizing and dominating Wholeness. “Wholeness”—this is a very dangerous concept (a point that will accompany us throughout this book)—dangerous for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is always available to be pushed into ideological ends. Whenever anybody talks of wholeness being the ultimate, then we must be very wary, in my opinion, because they are often telling us that we are merely “parts” of their particular version of “wholeness,” and so we should be subservient to their vision—we are merely strands in their wonderful web.

c. Self-transcendence (or self-transformation). When an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms are brought together under suitable circumstances, a new and in some ways unprecedented holon emerges, that of a water molecule. This is not just a communion, self-adaptation, or association of three atoms; it is a transformation that results in something novel and emergent—different wholes have come together to form a new and different whole.

…

Some writers, such as Koestler, lump together self-adaptation and self-transcendence and refer to them interchangeably, because both embody a type of “going beyond.” But apart from that similarity, the two are different in degree and in kind. In self-adaptation or communion, one finds oneself to be part of a larger whole; in self-transformation one becomes a new whole, which has its own new forms of agency and communion.

…

All of which he summarizes this way: “In the self-organization paradigm, evolution is the result of self-transcendence at all levels.”15 He also calls this “self-realization through self-transcendence.”

d. Self-dissolution—Holons that are built up (through vertical self-transformation) can also break down. Not surprisingly, when holons “dissolve” or “come unglued,” they tend to do so along the same vertical sequence in which they were built up (only, of course, in the reverse direction).

This is a constant tension, as it were, across all domains, and shows up in everything from the battle between self-preservation and species-preservation, to the conflict between rights (agency) and responsibilities (communions), individuality and membership, personhood and community, coherence and correspondence, self-directed and other-directed, autonomy and heteronomy… . In short, how can I be both my own wholeness and a part of something larger, without sacrificing one or the other?

(Part of the answer, we will see, at all stages of evolution, including the human, involves self-transcendence to new forms of agency and communion that integrate and incorporate both partners in a supersession: not just a wider whole—a horizontal expansion—but a deeper or higher whole—a vertical emergence—which is indeed why “evolution is the result of self-transcendence at all levels,” and why it is “self-realization through self-transcendence”—but that is somewhat ahead of the story.)

3. Holons emerge. Owing to the self-transcendent capacity of holons, new holons emerge. First subatomic particles, then atoms, then molecules, then polymers, then cells, and so on. The emergent holons are in some sense novel; they posses properties and qualities that cannot be strictly and totally deduced from their components; and therefore they, and their descriptions, cannot be reduced without remainder to their component parts.

4. Holons emerge holarchically. That is, as a series of increasing whole/parts. Organisms contain cells, but not vice versa; cells contain molecules, but not vice versa; molecules contain atoms, but not vice versa. And it is that not vice versa, at each stage, that constitutes unavoidable asymmetry and nested hierarchy (holarchy). Each deeper or higher holon embraces its junior predecessors and then adds its own new and more encompassing pattern or wholeness—the new code or canon or morphic field or agency that will define this as a whole and not merely a heap (as Aristotle clearly spotted). This is Whitehead’s famous dictum: “The many become one and are increased by one.”

Virtually all deep ecologists and ecofeminists reject the notion of holarchy, for rather confused reasons, it seems to me. From what I can tell, they seem to think that hierarchy and atomism are “bad,” and that their “wholism” is the opposite of both. But no less than the patron saint of deep ecology, Arne Naess, clearly points out that “wholism” and “atomism” are actually two sides of the same problem, and that the cure for both is hierarchy. All reality, he points out, consists of what he calls “subordinate wholes” or “subordinate gestalts”—that is, holons. “We have therefore,” he says, “a complex realm of gestalts, in a vast hierarchy. We can therefore speak of lower- and higher-order gestalts.”33

…

… I don’t know why his [Naess'] followers have such a difficult time grasping his notion. Perhaps it is, as I suggested earlier, that they are in such reaction to pathological hierarchies that they toss the baby out with the bathwater. I think this is very understandable, because in some early versions of hierarchy, the conception was rather rigid and “fascist,” and resulted, no doubt, from what we have called pathological agency.

…

If the deep ecologists and ecofeminists would follow Naess’s lead, the whole discussion could move forward more smoothly. As it is now, they are often the defenders of flatland “wholism” and extreme heterarchy, which indeed is the opposite of atomism: two sides of the same problem.

5. Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessor(s). Each newly emergent holon, as we have seen, includes its preceding holons and then adds its own new and defining pattern or form or wholeness (its new canon or code or morphic field). In other words, it preserves the previous holons themselves but negates their separateness or isolatedness or aloneness. It preserves their being but negates their partiality or exclusiveness. “To supersede,” said Hegel, “is at once to preserve and to negate.”36

6. The lower sets the possibilities of the higher; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower. We just saw that as a higher level of creative novelty emerges, it in many ways goes beyond (but includes) the givens of the previous level. However, even though a higher level “goes beyond” a lower level, it does not violate the laws or the patterns of the lower level. It cannot be reduced to the lower level; it cannot be determined by the lower level; but neither can it ignore the lower level. My body follows the laws of gravity; my mind follows other laws, such as those of symbolic communication and linguistic syntax; but if my body falls off a cliff, my mind goes with it.

Now, a “level” in a holarchy is established by several objective criteria: by a qualitative emergence (as explained by Popper); by asymmetry (or “symmetry breaks,” as explained by Prigogine and Jantsch); by an inclusionary principle (the higher includes the lower, but not vice versa, as explained by Aristotle); by a developmental logic (the higher negates and preserves a lower, but not vice versa, as explained by Hegel); by a chronological indicator (the higher chronologically comes after the lower, but all that is later is not higher, as explained by Saint Gregory).

7. “The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is ‘shallow’ or ‘deep’; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its ‘span.’”43

For this example, let us arbitrarily assign atoms a depth of three (they contain as components at least two other levels). We can imagine a time, early in the universe, when there were only atoms and not yet molecules. Atoms had a small depth (3) but an enormous span, stretching, we presume, throughout the existent universe and numbering in the megazillions (thus, depth = 3, span = zillions). When molecules first emerged, they had a greater depth, a depth of four, but initially a very small span (presumably in the hundreds, or whatever, and then growing rapidly).

8. Each successive level of evolution produces GREATER depth and LESS span. The greater the depth of a holon, the more precarious is its existence, since its existence depends also on the existence of a whole series of other holons internal to it. And since the lower holons are components of the higher, there physically cannot be more numbers of the higher than there are numbers of components.

Thus, for example, the number of molecules in the universe will always be less than the number of atoms in the universe. The number of cells in the universe will always be less than the number of molecules in the universe, and so on. It simply means the number of wholes will always be less than the number of parts, indefinitely.

Addition 1: The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness. The spectrum of evolution is a spectrum of consciousness. And one can perhaps begin to see that a spiritual dimension is built into the very fabric, the very depth, of the Kosmos.

We have, of course, on several occasions already met these two dimensions. Agency and communion (or self-preservation and self-accommodation) refer to changes in the horizontal dimension; self-transcendence and self-dissolution refer to changes in the vertical dimension. So we can introduce a few more simple definitions:

Changes in the horizontal dimension I will call translation, and changes in the vertical dimension I will call transformation.

Thus, in transformation (or self-transcendence), whole new worlds of translation disclose themselves. These “new worlds” are not physically located someplace else; they exist simply as a deeper perception (or deeper registration) of the available stimuli in this world. They appear to be—and might as well be—“other worlds” to the junior holons, but these “other worlds” disclose themselves—they become this worldly—via transformation and self-transcendence. We will see, in later chapters, that development is a constant conversion of “otherworldly” into “this worldly” via a deepening of perception brought about by emergent evolution and transformation. Greater depth brings other worlds into this world, constantly…

We can use our simple analogy of the three-story building to summarize all of these definitions. Each of the three main floors is a deep structure; the furniture, chairs, and tables on each floor are the surface structures. Rearranging the furniture on any given floor is translation; changing floors is transformation. (And the relation of the furniture to each floor is transcription.)

9. Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it. There is an enormous amount of confusion in the literature as to how to determine whether a given holon is “higher” or “lower” in the developmental sequence—not to mention the large numbers of critics who deny higher and lower altogether.

But we can actually locate the level of a holon in any evolutionary or holistic sequence very simply, by asking ourselves, as a type of thought experiment, “What other types of holons would be destroyed if we destroyed this type of holon?”

the difference between fundamental and significant. For what we will find is that the more fundamental a holon is, the less significant it is, and vice versa. That is:

The less depth a holon has, the more fundamental it is to the Kosmos, because it is a component of so many other holons. Atoms, for example, are very fundamental, relatively speaking, because molecules and cells and organisms all depend upon them. The more fundamental a holon is, the more of the universe contains that holon as a necessary part or constituent, without which these other holons could not function (or even exist). Less depth means more fundamental, means the particular holon is a “building block” of so many other holons.

At the same time, the less depth a holon has, the less significant it is to the Kosmos, because it embraces (as its own components) so little of the Kosmos. There is, relatively speaking, less of the Kosmos that is actually internal to this holon, that is actually embraced within the being of the holon itself. (Put differently, it is less significant because more of the Kosmos is external to it.)

10. Holarchies coevolve. Holons do not evolve alone, because there are no alone holons (there are only fields within fields within fields). This principle is often referred to as coevolution, which simply means that the “unit” of evolution is not an isolated holon (individual molecule or plant or animal) but a holon plus its inseparable environment. Evolution, that is, is ecological in the broadest sense.

In other words, even though an “individual holon” exists inseparably from its social environment, its defining factor is its own particular form or pattern. To the degree that we can reasonably recognize that pattern, we will refer to an individual holon.

This is still somewhat arbitrary, of course, because there are some social holons that seem to act as individual holons or “superorganisms”—an ant colony, for example. But in human affairs, to give a counterexample, most of us resist the temptation to describe a social holon, such as the State, as being literally a superorganism, because all organisms have priority over all of their components, and yet with the rise of democratic structures, we like to think that the State is subservient to the people, and to the degree that that is true, then the social system is not a true organism (it is a social or environmental holon, not an individual holon). Further, the State, unlike a concrete individual, does not have a locus of self-prehension, a unitary feeling as a oneness. In more general terms, it lacks a locus of individual self-being (one of Whitehead’s main conclusions; and Habermas: the State is not a macrosubject). And finally, the parts in this social system are conscious, but the “whole” is not.

11. The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth. This tenet is extremely important, particularly when it comes to holons of greater depth and the types of ecosystems (in the broad sense) that they must co-create and upon which their existence depends.

Take, for example, a human being, using just the three levels of matter, life, and mind: all of these levels maintain their own existence through an incredibly rich network of relational exchange with holons of the same depth in the environment. The physical body exists in a system of relational exchange with other physical bodies—in terms of gravitation, material forces and energies, light, water, environmental weather, and so on—and the physical body itself depends for its existence on these physical relationships. Further, the human race reproduces itself physically through food production and food consumption, through social labor organized in an economy for basic material exchanges in the physiosphere.

Likewise, humanity reproduces itself biologically through emotional-sexual relations organized in a family and an appropriate social environment, and depends for its biological existence on a whole network of other biological systems (and ecosystems)—it depends upon harmonious relational exchanges with the biosphere.

Finally, human beings reproduce themselves mentally through exchanges with cultural and symbolic environments, the very essence of which is the relational exchange of symbols with other symbol exchangers. These relational exchanges are embedded in the traditions and institutions of a particular society in such a way that that society can reproduce itself on a cultural level, can reproduce itself in the noosphere.

12. Evolution has directionality. This is the famous arrow of evolutionary time first recognized in the biosphere, but now understood, in the sciences of complexity, to be present in all three of the great domains of evolution. This directionality is usually stated as being one of increasing differentiation, variety, complexity, and organization. But I think it would be helpful to gather together, from different sources, the various indicators of this evolutionary directionality and briefly examine them one at a time.

But this much at any rate I can affirm about any present or future writers who pretend to knowledge of the matters with which I concern myself [mystical knowledge of the One]; in my judgement it is impossible that they should have any understanding of the subject. It is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning; only after long partnership in a common life [contemplative community] devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark. No treatise by me concerning it exists or ever will exist.

—PLATO, Seventh Epistle

IT HAS ALWAYS struck me as odd that so much of our Western tradition is supposed to be a series of footnotes to Plato, and yet the crucial book to which we are all footnotes … was never written. “No treatise by me concerning it exists or ever will exist.”

Scholars generally agree that Plato was here referring to the mystical knowledge of the One, the Good “beyond Being” (as Plato also calls it). There, apparently, was the heart of the Platonic message, and yet that he never committed to print (whereas he had no trouble writing volumes on ethics, on the archetypal Forms, epistemology, politics, love, and so forth).

I would like to pursue this legacy [the contemplative one] of Plato for several reasons. One is that, if Western civilization is a series of footnotes to Plato, the footnotes are fractured.

Another is that we see in Plato one of the first clear descriptions of two movements related to the unspoken One, or two “movements” related to Spirit itself (to the extent it can be verbalized at all). The first movement is a descent of the One into the world of the Many, a movement that actually creates the world of the Many, blesses the Many and confers Goodness on all of it: Spirit immanent in the world. The other is the movement of return or ascent from the Many to the One, a process of remembering or recollecting the Good: Spirit transcendent to the world.

For, as we will see, while Plato emphasized both movements, Western civilization has been a battle royale between these two movements, between those who wanted only to live in “this world” of Manyness and those who wanted to live only in the “other world” of transcendent Oneness—both of them equally and catastrophically forgetting the unifying Heart, the unspoken Word, that integrates both Ascent and Descent and finds Spirit both transcending the Many and embracing the Many.

This Good transcends all possible manifestation—Plato even says “it actually transcends existence… . The whole soul must be wheeled round from that which is subject to becoming [the entire world of time and manifestation] until it is able to endure the contemplation of that which is …” (The Republic).

The manifest realm, far from being a world of shadows in the Cave, is now seen as the realm and very embodiment of the Radiance of Spirit itself, suffused with Goodness and with Love. “The world of sense could no longer be adequately described as an idle flickering of insubstantial shadow-shapes, at two removes from both the Good and the Real. Not only did the Sun itself [the causal One] produce cave, and fire, and moving shapes, and the shadows, and their beholders, but in doing so it manifested a property of its own nature not less essential—and, as might well appear, even more excellent—than that pure radiance upon which no earthly eye could steadfastly gaze. The shadows were as needful to the Sun as the Sun to the shadows; their existence was the very consummation of its perfection.”6

And thus their existence was cause for an exuberant this-worldly celebration and embrace!

…

… The entire manifest world—this world—Plato calls a “visible, sensible God.”

We can therefore summarize Plato’s overall position in words that would apply to any Nondual stance wherever it appears (as we have already seen it apply to Eckhart and Ramana): flee the Many, find the One; having found the One, embrace the Many as the One.

The Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions (and similar Nondual traditions in the East) therefore maintained that the “Good” or Perfect One is expressed in and as the “Goodness” of all creation. Those two terms—the “Good” and “Goodness”—are extremely important, because we will see these actual terms repeated again and again in subsequent history: The path of Ascent is the path of the Good; the path of Descent is the path of Goodness.

the Many returning to and embracing the One is Good, and is known as wisdom; the One returning to and embracing the Many is Goodness, and is known as compassion.

Wisdom knows that behind the Many is the One. Wisdom sees through the confusion of shifting shapes and passing forms to the groundless Ground of all being. Wisdom sees beyond the shadows to the timeless and formless Light (in Tantra, the self-luminosity of Being). Wisdom, in short, sees that the Many is One. Or, as in Zen, wisdom or prajna sees that Form is Emptiness (the “solid” and “substantial” world of phenomena is really fleeting, impermanent, insubstantial—“like a bubble, a dream, a shadow,” as The Diamond Sutra puts it). Wisdom sees that “this world is illusory; Brahman alone is real.”

But if wisdom sees that the Many is One, compassion knows that the One is the Many; that the One is expressed equally in each and every being, and so each is to be treated with compassion and care, not in any condescending fashion, but rather because each being, exactly as it is, is a perfect manifestation of Spirit. Thus, compassion sees that the One is the Many. Or, as in Zen, compassion or karuna sees that Emptiness is Form (the ultimate empty Dharmakaya is not other to the entire world of Form, so that prajna or wisdom is the birth of the Bodhisattva and karuna or compassion is the motivation of the Bodhisattva). Compassion sees that “Brahman is the world,” and that, as Plato put it, the entire world is a “visible, sensible God.”

Scholars usually take Plotinus’s system (and Aurobindo’s and all such similar transpersonal holarchies) to be primarily a form of philosophy or “metaphysics”: the various levels, particularly the higher ones, are imagined to be some sort of theoretical constructs that are deduced, logically, or postulated, speculatively, to account for existence and manifestation.

But in fact these systems are, through and through, from top to bottom, the results of actual contemplative apprehensions and direct developmental phenomenology. The higher levels of these systems cannot be experienced or deduced rationally, and nobody from Plotinus to Aurobindo thinks they can. However, after the fact of direct and repeated experiential disclosures, they can be rationally reconstructed and presented as a “system.” But the “system,” so called, has been discovered, not deduced, and checked against direct experience in a community of the like-minded and like-spirited (it is no accident that Inge refers to Plotinus’s spirituality as being based on “experimental verification”—“faith begins as an experiment and ends as an experience”).22

Not a single component of these systems is hidden to experience or nestled safely away in a “metaphysical” domain that cannot be checked cognitively with the appropriate tools. There is absolutely nothing “metaphysical” about these systems: they are empirical-phenomenological developmental psychology at its most rigorous and most comprehensive, carried straightforwardly and openly into the transpersonal domains via the experimental instrument of contemplation.23