Jean Gebser THE INVISIBLE ORIGIN

Jean Gebser 

Jean Gebser 

THE INVISIBLE ORIGIN 

Evolution as a Supplementary Process 

The New Consciousness 

Although it is presently prohibited to consider, while observing obvious facts, events and 

things, also those which are as is commonly said behind the things, it will be attempted 

on these pages to overrule this timid prohibition. Whoever insists on letting the 

transparency of the whole become evident, must devote himself to this rather painful 

and uncomfortable but also pleasant task, which is from year to year becoming more 

urgent and necessary. He has to do it even at the risk that his statements, meant to be 

a contribution to the explanation of human behaviour, will be discarded in a rationalistic 

and emotionally negative way, since they are inconvenient to the presently 

overemphasized security requirement. By practicing a realistic, responsible and well- 

reasoned presentation, I hope to cause offence only to those who are inclined to an 

emotional intoxication and demonstrate ever so often their failure to have reached the 

actual Western consciousness and mental capability. Only if and when we have come to 

the stage that we not only have reached this Occidental consciousness which is 

orientated much stronger by space and time than e.g. the Asiatic, but when we begin to 

appreciate that it is not only the first stage to a new consciousness but can be identified 

with it, then it is possible to acknowledge that the “Invisible Origin” can be perceived. 

In the Origin that engraves on us irrevocably, the course of time may be predetermined 

but is not yet actual. This will be dealt with later. But it should be stated here already 

that the acknowledgement of this pristine constellation will put numerous hitherto valid 

conceptions in question. Even if they retain their validity for the occidental or mental- 

rational consciousness, for the new consciousness of the global-integral kind they lose 

value. This new consciousness enables us to perceive the “Invisible Origin,” which 

causes the validity of certain rationalistic, single-causal and teleological (finalistic) views 

to be confined and hence to be reduced. (It will become evident during the following 

presentation that our whole life will be changed by executing the new consciousness 

which will enable us to perceive the “Invisible Origin”). Here it may suffice to point to 

the conceptual ideas, whose validity will be essentially affected by the above-mentioned 

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execution of the new consciousness. They are mainly three: the evolution, the freedom 

of will and the future. 

Evolution as a Supplementary Process 

It will therefore become evident that evolution can only be equated with progress where 

our concepts have been proved valid. Seen from the invisible and the Origin it 

represents itself as a supplementary process. It is however concerned with the efficacy 

of that which is not so much lying behind things as one inadequately says but of that 

which is invisibly causing the events without being causally connected to them. 

If however evolution, when seen from the Origin, is here a supple mentary process, 

then it is “there,” in the invisible, already preceded. Supplementary process and 

precedence imply one another. In other words: Foundation of the evolution is its 

precedent in the invisible. To translate this precedent subsequently into reality here in 

the visible, that is our life-task. Evolution is in this view neither progress nor 

development, but crystallization of the invisible in the visible, that should be achieved by 

adequate work. 

It is easy to talk about visible matters, since they can be materially grasped and 

comprehended. To talk about the other, i.e. the invisible “things” or better: the invisible 

realities or processes, is a thankless task, since to do this is not appropriate to present 

scientific fashion and will irritate all those, who either have not yet reached inner 

security or lost it through self-dissipation and loss to materialism. For those it is visible 

things only that counts as conclusive. The visible realm is thus their poor security and 

their shelter. But it also makes them uneasy and fearful; since otherwise they would not 

feel threatened merely by the suspicion that there might exist invisible re alities and 

react accordingly, as it so often happens. Thus conclusiveness is closely connected with 

visibilities. But it is generally forgotten that the invisible has the quality of being evident, 

which need not only be based on personal experience but also on the open-mindedness 

of common sense. 

It has presumably become clear that I am going to describe the “Evolution” from a 

novel and hence for many people irritating point of view. This keeps however other 

interpretations from being obsolete. It applies especially to the science interpretation 

which is forced to observe the space-time-bound sequential order, which is inherent in 

the things and events that are becoming visible here. This terrestrial time-space-bound 

occurrence will occasionally enhance speculatively into a teleologigal item, i.e. target 

and purpose bound forward or into a hybrid upwards or into a mighty higher-up. This 

however represents another problem which might be brought closer to a surprising or at 

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least evident solution by this script. 

The presently valid evolutionary theories including that of development and progress 

are hardly older than 100 years. They deal merely with one part of reality, and that part 

covers only the most solid, well-in-the-fore aspects, since they limit and have to limit 

themselves to the visible flow of events according to the current scientific working 

methods and hypotheses, which are all anthropocentric. In the best case and this is not 

a criticism but an observation based on the compulsory object orientation and the 

working methods in science this evolutionary theory covers half the reality, i.e. only the 

visible and conclusive. The total reality as far as it is accessible to us comprises however 

also the other half that is invisible to us. Under this aspect our subject becomes clearer: 

that we have to understand evolution as a space- and time-bound supplementary 

process that has been preceded in the realm of the non-visible. Evolution as a 

supplementary process of the precedent should therefore also be understood as 

complementary to the evolution as a forward movement. Both considerations 

complement one another, like Yin and Yang or the two sides of a coin or the visible and 

the invisible join to form the whole. Whoever denies the other half of reality, who even 

cannot find it evident, which requires none of the existing belief or knowledge forms, he 

cripples himself. Only resources that are staying unconscious can sometimes prevent 

the worst and ban the fears, particularly the fear of death. This struggle against death 

blocks the access to the invisible realms and forces for those people with only half a 

consciousness. They feel death is like being “there,” since they dare not realize that life 

and death not only belong together but while complementing one another are inherent 

in any person. Hence their aversion against dealing with these matters. This is however 

only one of the barriers and constrictions from those areas which are effective for those 

people who have neither belief nor knowledge. They have not yet succeeded to 

translate into reality those forms of belief and knowledge which are more awake and 

intensive. These have become operative while evidence and transparency have become 

executed, which imply one another and do not exclude each other like “Belief and 

Knowledge.” Those half and ultimately separated people slid however into an ever 

increasing secularization, hence into a mere earthly place and therefore into 

materialism. The designation “half people” should not be taken as a defamation, it only 

points to the fact that these people are living with only half their consciousness. Their 

increasing secularization manifests as the rational exclusivity claim of their scientific 

belief system since they believe (!) that the pure intellect is strong enough to master life 

and death. 

A Minor Course on Intellect and Reason 

“The intellect is a good employee but a poor boss,” said an Indian sage recently whose 

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name I forgot. This however cannot be said of it as long as it does not deny its female, 

receptive constituent, reason, without whose complementary co-operation the intellect 

becomes sterile or produces at its best only half measure. 

The last sentence needs some comment: 

The intellect understands; it is of male gender und its understanding is not a listening 

but an active grasping and grippingso to speak. It proceeds from its settings or from 

measurable and seizable magnitudes that it reckons with. It refers mainly to the visible 

and can be called const ructive as long as it is not used one-sidedly but in accordance 

with reason. It subordinates itself to the more dividing than clarifying and therefore not 

harmless alternative of the “either-or.” The results of its thinking process are either right 

or wrong. 

Reason listens (Vernunft-reason-is derived from Vernehmen-listening); it is of female 

gender as was the goddess Athena thinking swiftly like an arrow and emanating from 

the head of Zeus. Her listening is a receiving, so-to-speak an enduring hearing which 

reflects on the messages listened to; so as the ear is not an acting organ but a receiving 

and quite female organ. It does not calculate, it has its sources i n the basic Origin, and 

what it perceives originates sometimes from far away, often from the invisible of the 

heavens but also of the earth. With its tolerant and conciliate basic attitude of the “as- 

well-as” it is capable to match the polar manifestations of the living thinkable with 

common sense. The results of its thinking are right, almost right or wrong. 

Only where a thinking result is right as well as true it is binding. Only where the 

constructive intellectual thinking combines with the receiving reasoning, thinking 

becomes creative. The one without the other causes unilaterally only devastating 

intellectual instead of reasonable results, or negative chaotic rational instead of sound 

achievements. 

In the West but also in the American and Russian present successor civilization we have 

cut ourselves off from the living thinking in an almost outrageous manner and this 

should be stated with emphasis because we accepted, particularly since the period of 

enlightenment, only the intellect as the male and patriarchical component of thinking 

and denied reason as the receptive female component. Today reason has become 

rudimentary in many people due to the fact that generations have not made use of it. 

The unilateral and hence destructive overemphasis on the male type of thinking was 

certainly also a reaction to the beginning reduction of the patriarchical thinking like that 

of the patriarch per se which tried to stand up against the onslaught of the French 

Revolution which decapitized the Father, the Sun King. 

This attempt had to paid for: it was our self-treason to the visible, obvious world, the 

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increasing secularization, the male (if not villainous) act of defiance of dictators (of the 

degenerately triumphing and degenerately acclaimed imitators of patriarchical dignity 

and prestige), the destructive extradition of our “thinking and striving” to the material 

visibilities. The nothing-but-intellectual thinking became sterile calculation, the calculus. 

Its results have shown to be presently quantifying and hence destructive. 

Creative thinking, formerly jointly contributed by a mental intellect and reason up to 

scholasticism, even up to enlightenment and occasionally still thereafter, accordingly 

being of a living, clear and binding character, bec ame a unilaterally rational razor-sharp 

separating thinking. The separating “Iron Curtain” had already been prepared long ago, 

since the Aristotelian “either-or.” But is is usually overlooked that this curtain started to 

split also the inner life of the individual: the increasing brutal destruction, tragedy and 

despair of unrelatedness, the schizoid attitudes of the latest generations, they all have 

their source in the executed split of intellect and reason. 

It has already been mentioned: the unilaterally intellectual (rational) thinking refers only 

to the visible; the invisible appears to it by mistake always as irrational since it cannot 

be concluded. But the rationally calculating human fails to see that the irrational 

transcends and transforms its inconclusiveness into perceptibility. 

Reference to Obstructions 

Yet let us now look at the predetermination of what is here called evolution. He who is 

capable to realize and perceive with the inner eye, possibly to listen with the inner ear, 

will have easier access to the realm that complements the visible than those who have 

to rely merely on their freedom from prejudice and on their open-mindedness. Since 

there are hints and entries to that complex constellation which resides in the invisibility 

of the pre-earthly and prenatal space-timelessness. This constellation contains seminally 

as well as simultaneously everything that down here is threading, fanning, foliating or 

expressing itself in such a way that we are inclined to call it evolution, although it is 

merely the appearance or manifestation of our potentials that are di sposed and latent 

in us ever since. 

There are numerous obstructions, especially for the modern western human being, that 

refuse him admittance to this realm and blind and deafen him to any indication in this 

respect. And it should be added that these obstructions show him to be unsuccessful in 

executing the necessary mutation from the mental-rational consciousness structure, 

which is characteristic of our ending era, into the novel, the integral consciousness. 

After having identified fear of death as the first obstruction, suffice it now to show the efficacy of the 

invisible by means of a few examples in order to point to obstructions that appear in those people as 

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specific defence reactions of anxiety, of incapability, of flight, of denial and concern, who recoil from the 

recognition and acceptance of this efficacy previously negated with a bad conscience, because they 

equate the invisible with nothingness. Let us now look at the examples and the reactions they trigger. 

Before the First Day 

About twenty years ago science still disagreed about the age of the planet earth. 

Estimates varied between two billion and a hundred billion years. New measuring 

methods have only recently lead to a consensus opinion. Today it is generally accepted 

that the earth and our planetary system have come into being 15 billion years ago at 

the earliest and 5 to 10 billion years ago at the latest. [1] To mention this is important, 

since the majority of our contemporaries are still more impressed by so-called 

quantitative dimensions and neglect almost totally the qualitative intensities. One should 

avoid this mistake in view of the statements to follow. They refer to an “event” which, 

when located in time, should be called an event before the first day. How and when was 

that? In any case before the earth came into being. One could also say: between ever 

and never. If we dare leave that statement valid we sketch a very complex constellation 

of a time-independent nature, that may be for many more people inconvenient rather 

than convenient due to its independence of time. “Before the first day” means before 

the beginning of the world, of the earth; but this includes that it is before the beginning 

of any time. Since the two extreme time forms “Ever and Never” cancel each other out 

as polarizing elements (and project both into the timeless over-temporality) this 

formulation outlines quite realistically the essential structure of that which was before 

the first day, if it is at all permitted to indicate a relation to a non-existing spaceousness 

by using the word “lying” and to use the verb “was” indicating timeliness. Since those 

statements we are pointing at, refer to the space-timelessness of everything that was 

before the first day, we have to talk about this spa ce-timelessness which includes also 

the ever-present Origin. We tried to describe this elsewhere. [2] Before we will deal with 

these statements some hints to the Origin should be communicated which can be found 

in the description of the Chinese central theme, the Tao. Also there, space-timelessness 

plays a certain role, which remains almost inconceivable, as long as it is merely a 

conception created by the intellect and hence without participation of reason. However, 

by concluding that the world has a certain age and hence a beginning, this conception 

becomes thinkable. Carl Friedrich von Weizs?cker states about that time of the worldís 

beginning: “Before that time the world, even if it existed, must have been in a state that 

was completely different from the present and almost unimaginable, since even 

concepts like time were not applicable for it.” [3] 

By the way, it may be worth mentioning, as did Pascual Jordan when citing Bernhard 

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Bavink, that already two great Fathers of the Church have “suspected” this fact which 

has now been made comprehendable by research. St. Augustine (354 - 430) writes in 

his “Kingdom of God on Earth”: “Without doubt the world has not been created within 

time but together with time. Before the world no time could have existed since there 

was no creature with whose change of state in motion time could have originated.” And 

Isidor of Sevilla (~ 560 - 636) states in his “De Summo Bono”: “Before the world came 

into being, there was certainly no time since time is a creature of God; therefore it came 

into being together with the world.” [4] 

The Origin and the Tao 

Laotzu moved the Tao (Dau) right into the center of Chinese thought when he published 

his book of sayings, the Taoteking (Dau-de-Djing) around 500 BCE. To explain Tao 

conceptually, is particularly difficult, since its conceptual definition covers only the 

meaning it has for the visible realm here. But this is not its full meaning. The conceptual 

meaning is only the mirror of a far richer one in the invisible realm. In the end is Tao 

the godlike or divine Spirit or world foundation (of a quite impersonal ki nd) that 

interweaves everything, the shapeless and the invisible as well as the shaped and the 

visible, and is simultaneously the void and the plenty. This paradoxical outline expresses 

its inconceivability by our intellect. After all, everything that goes beyond our space-time 

co-ordinate system, or acts as i ts basis, evades the conceptua l fixation even where we 

temporarily must use concepts. 

Out of this dilemma the Chinese found an exit. The word “Tao” has four colloquial 

meanings that are all valid although apparently disparate and unrelated. Depending on 

the preference for the individual interpretation our sinologists chose the one or the 

other meaning they translated “Tao” with “right (correct) path,” with “uprightness,” 

“directedness” or with “head.” It is certainly also that which is defined with these 

concepts, but at the same time much more than this, not only a valid and defining 

concept in this realm but a nominating paraphrase for the ultimate principle. 

This ultimate principle was since those times (500 BCE) up to recently located on the 

terrestrial plane (the earth or the world that the Chinese called the “lower heaven” or 

the “heaven down under”) and consisted of the mental consciousness, which was 

manifesting itself at that time and caused mental thinking to become the domi nating 

realization form of the human being. On the supernatural plane (called by the Chinese 

the “upper heaven” or the “heaven above”) this ultimate principle, which interweaves 

also the terrestrial plane, has been up to now the “Divine” or the “Godlike” as such, 

which in the end becomes anonymous and non-mentionable and resides “above the 

heavens,” which means above the lower and the upper heaven. 

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One should keep in mind this double-track meaning of the conceptually defined Tao and 

the evokingly outlined Tao in order to lift its secret. This double-track thinking is 

symptomatic for the demand of the Chinese to establish always the relations betw een 

the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial, between earth and heaven or between the lower 

and the upper heavens and the “realms” above the heavens. This demand helped them 

to overcome the tension between the conceptually conceivable and the conceptually 

inconceivable. It solved this dilemma by setting the ultimate i.e. the supernatural as well 

as the superheavenly principle in parallel to the ultima te principle down here. During 

the last era this was the mental consciousness, from which the capability of mental 

thinking originated. 

Up to now we have overlooked that the word Tao contains two references, which 

identify it as the most precise expression for the ultimate principle or potential of the 

mental consciousness. These are on the one hand its four meanings, on the other it is 

its hidden and the word-founding root. 

The four meanings of this word in Chinese identify the best properties of mental 

thinking which became ma nifest since the middle of the last millenium BCE in the very 

advanced civilizations (e.g. Greece, India and China). During that time the mental 

structure mutated out of the mythical consciousness structure. Thus the mythical 

thinking, which was pictorial, executed in circles and returned always to itself was 

superseded by the mental thinking, which executes a conceptual, purposive and 

straightforward thinking directed to an opposite. This conceptual and no-longer pict orial 

thinking became the highest human potential, the ultimate earthly human principle. Its 

first significant representatives were Socrates and Plato, Mahavira and Buddha, Laotzu 

and Kungfutzu. [5] 

It is by no means accidental that around 500 BCE old-age Laotzu wrote on the border to 

China, in this case a transition from the terrestrial to the extraterrestrial, his book (King, 

Djing) about the “Tao.” After its completion he went across into the country alien to the 

others. He left the revelation about the Tao behind as a legacy. Even by choosing the 

wording he indicated his book of aphorisms to be also of mental character. The four 

meanings of the word Tao make this evident as mentioned above. Since it is one of the 

characteristics of mental thinking that, by transcending mythical pictoria l thinking, it 

takes and pursues the “right way” (leading into a new consciousness) whose 

characteristics are straightness or purpose orientation and directedness, that turns 

toward a vis-a-vis instead of permanently returning to itself. Furthermore this thinking is 

executed no more in the heart within, turning to the inner pictorial world of myths, but 

this thinking originates like Athene in the head and is direc ted toward the external 

world to be dominated. Particularly these four characteristics have been identified in 

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“The Ever-present Origin” as forming the basis for the mental consciousness mode [6] , 

and we find them again as quite relevant while studying the Tao. This mental thinking 

was-as already mentioned since 500 BCE the ultimate potential of the human being, 

where his conscious realisations and his kind of world understanding and world 

domination originated. The terrestrial Tao corresponded to the overheavenly-divine Tao 

insofar, as the latter c ontains the universal consciousness. On what plane and in which 

area whatsoever, the Tao always contains the Origin. 

Let us now briefly consider the root of the word Tao which makes its basic mental 

characteristics clear. When describing the mental consciousness structure, I pointed out 

that the main concepts characterizing the mental thinking contain the prime root “da: 

di.” The basic meaning of this root is “to divide.” Mental consciousness was a waking 

consciousness (differing from the dreamlike, mythical consciousness), and hence 

committed to the day, simultaneously conceptualizing the time and transforming the up 

to then divine picture into the concept of deus (or Zeus!), thus conceptuall y dividing 

God from the terrestrial and transforming him into the personal vis-a-vis to the human 

Ego. 

Out of a large number only a few keywords may be mentioned here. They all contain 

the dividing element, they all go back to the root “da:di” and are closely interrelated: 

“day” as the divider of “time,” dividing it out of the totality of day and night, “deus” or 

“Zeus” who divides the human from the heavenly realm. Even as I explained these 

complex facts for the first time, I indicated that even the word “Tao” is based on the 

root “da:di,” which characterizes the mental. [7] 

Let us now turn to the meaning of Tao after having defined its conceptual aspect. 

Richard Wilhelm who had the privilege of assistance from a Taoist sage, when 

translating the Taote King, has translated Tao with & #147;SENSE” (SINN) [8] . With 

reference to the all-interweaving Tao it is the universal all-sense, the ultimate principle, 

that irradiates any sense of heaven and earth. But at the same time the word “Sense” 

contains the multivalent characteristics of mental thinking. This multivalence should 

always be kept in mind. In German it is less clear than e.g. in the French word “sens.” 

This word “sens” may be translated with “direction” (as in “sens unique”), with 

“significance” as well as with “perceptivity” (of the five discriminating senses). 

The diversity of the possible translations of Tao corresponds to the universal character 

of this basic principle. 

Apart from the numerous brief and always paradoxical explanations of Tao as found in 

the Tao te King, the work of Dschuang Dsi (Tschuang Tse), who lived around 350 BCE, 

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contains the attempt to describe its essence. It reads in the German translation by 

Richard Wilhelm: [9] 

“This is the SENSE (the Tao): it is benevolent and faithful but does not 

express itself in actions and has no outer shape; it can be communicated 

but not grasped; it can be attained but not seen; uncreated it is root to 

itself. Before heaven and earth came into being it existed since all eternity; 

it bestows spirit to demons and deities; it created heaven and earth. It 

existed before all times and is not high; it is beyond any space and is not 

deep; it preceded the emergence of heaven and earth and is not old; it is 

older than the oldest antiquity and is not senile.” 

This description contains what has been explained on the previous pages and supports 

what is still to be said. Since Tao, “the Sense” has no ext ernal shape; one cannot see 

it; uncreated it is root to itself; it created heaven and earth. It existed before all 

times . . . it is beyond any ”space.” Therefore: being origin to itself it is the Invisible 

Origin that existed before all times, before the first day. 

Perhaps a remark may be worthwile on a surprising incidence while writing these pages: 

I discovered the text of the Dschuang Tse only several months after having completed 

the chapters “Before the First Day” and “An Agraphon.” [10]  I think I owe this remark 

to the relevance of my description. 

An Agraphon 

The picture presented so far should suffice to put the statements now to be quoted in 

their true light. These statements will remain noncommittal only for those who have 

renounced the spiritual heritage of the occident. I will confine myself to quote, will 

refrain from any interpretat ion but point to the consequences of the problems in 

question (those concerning evolution, freedom of will and future). 

From the Syrian Ephraem we have been handed down an apocryphal saying, an 

agraphon (i.e. a saying of Jesus Christ, not written down in the bible) that he spoke to 

his disciples: 

“I selected you before the world came into being.” [11] Another form is contained in an 

agrapha edition published with ecclesiastical permission to print. It reads: “I selected 

you before the world was created.” [12] Analogous statements can be found also in the New Testament. Thus St. 

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Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians (1,4): “As he (God) has selected us through the same (Christ) before the world had been 

founded.” And in his second letter to Timothy he sp eaks (1,9) of the “grace given to us in Jesus Christ before the time of the 

world.” [13] There are still further hints to this fact in the New Testament, so by St. John (17,5) where Christ states: “And now 

transfigure me, Father, with yourself, with the clarity I had before the world existed.” And also at the same place (17,24): “You 

(Father) have loved me before the world has been founded.” “And St. Peter speaks in his first letter (1,20) of Christ ,who was 

chosen for that before the foundation of the world but at the end of times he revealed himself for your sake.” [14] 

There is no need to comment the apocryphal word of Jesus and its confirmation by the 

disciples. Apart from that, any comment could be understood as an exegesis which to 

perform as a non-theologian I am not competent. Suffice it to remark that we are 

dealing with a statement of divine and sober depth and elucidation that cannot be 

explored intellectually, particularly since also the spiritual origin of humankind, the 

spiritual anthropogenesis, lights up in it. A frightening majority of Western huma nkind 

has however lost the memory of this spiritual origin in a disastrous manner and to an 

almost fatal extent. The agraphon could restore it to the one or the other as a certainty. 

This would be an enormous improvement. Those people however, who regard Christ 

after their resignation to believe, only as a legendary appearance since he never 

became evident to them, cannot use his word. But those who do believe have avoided 

to speak about it. In the protestant literature it was only Karl Barth (according to 

authorities of the church), who mentioned these statements in his “Kirchliche Dogmatik” 

(Ecclesiastical Dogmatics) without comment, only as a hint to the pre-existence of Jesus 

Christ. These facts are characteristic. Neither for the rational nor the irrational human 

being it is possible to understand or accept here, let alone to draw consequences. 

Apart from this incompetence with regard to consciousness, there might be another 

reason to be silent about these statements: the fear that freedom of will might break 

up, even become illusory when consciously acknowledging them. This however is a 

rational false conclusion. At first the concept ‘fr eedom of will’ is a misconcept, 

acceptable only if one interprets it as ‘freedom to decide.’ Second, there is no loss of 

freedom to decide when we practice it in our day-to-day life, since the basic decision 

has been taken not in the visible but in the invisible, in this case at a pre-earthly “time.” 

We have no choice but to live according to this pre-determination; to do it or not to do 

it, remains our freedom or unfreed om. And where remains the evolution? Can the 

secondary process of the given or predetermined potential to mature be called progress 

or evolution? 

An intelligent contemporary of unknown name remarked recently: “Time is an invention 

to prevent that everything happens at the same time.” In our case all things happened 

at “the same time” in the invisible which can here in the visible only occur one after the 

other, which can also be called “evolution” or, over a longer period, “higher 

development.” 

The restraint to think these statements to the end, expresses itself as the fear to lose the arrogant anthropocentricity and to have to 

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do without the little page of glory for having individually participated in the accomplished but misunderstood evolution. To talk of a 

renunciation of freedom of will is not only unnecessary but wrong. We will come across this fact in a further example. We live by all 

means not without freedom to decide, since our entire life consists mainly in the task to remain faithful to the decision that had 

formerly been taken in the invisible and in all freedom. What is felt as a renunciation, turns out to be m erely a transfer from the 

visible into the inv isible. The decision taken there became valid for our life here, and that constellation, in which this occurred, is at 

the same time also our most inner core which rests deeply within us and accompanies us at all times. In contrast to that, the 

continuously changing and variable little Ego, being proud of so many ephemeral things like freedom of will and being often fairly 

capricious, contrary to the inner security of the core protecting us, plays its sometimes necessary role which is however 

indispensable for human encounters. 

Selected ten billion years ago: can we speak here of evolution? Certainly the above 

example deals with humans of a special kind, the disciples of Jesus Christ. But anybody 

looking back on his life can detect, if he finds at all anything evolutionary, that not he 

himself was the trigger but his inner voice or the so called accident or something else 

apparently independent fr om him. Not without reason there is the saying felt as a 

praise: “He remained faithful to himself.” Where and of what kind of knowledge may 

this saying come from, to which we cannot find an egocentric undertone? 

Going back to the disciples, even there was “Development.” Saulus became St.Paul at 

the decisive moment. St. John wrote the Apocalypse at old age. Everything was within 

them from the beginning. Faithful to themselves they decided only according to that pre- 

decision to which they had agreed in advance with regard to talent and consciousness. 

The insight into the true character of what is called “evolution,” also with regard to the 

human being and to consciousness, appears to me important. The power of acceptance 

of what is called evolution as seen from the visible, must be reduced to the correct 

value, since otherweise we risk to lose finally the participation in the invisible origin that 

constitutes all of us all the time. 

Two Examples for the At-Once Structure 

The obstacle to our question consists of the fact that we have to attempt today, due to 

lingustic lack of expression, to cope with constellations alien or non-existent to the 

visible realm, by using an inadequate terminology. Here belongs among others the 

simultaneity that is said to be valid for constellations in the invisible. We are dealing 

here with that simultaneity of all possible tenses that belongs to the Orig in as far as 

anything “belongs” to the Origin. 

Up to recently it was generally understood that the invisible can neither be grasped nor 

comprehended. The detections of nuclear physics have opened our eyes; there they are 

working with matters that are “invisible” but at least mathematically very well 

describable. The invisible simultaneity inherent in the origin and expressed in the basic 

constellations, cannot be desribed mathematically but for the attentive it may become 

evident. Here are two examples for that from the area of dream psychology and of 

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nuclear physics. 

The Core Dreams 

I realized that a particular type of dreams, that does not belong to the so- called high 

dreams, shows a particular uncertainty. This uncertainty consists of the large difficulty 

of the dreamer during the reconstruction of the dream after being awake again. 

Although he recalls very clearly the very complex content of the dream and its meaning, 

the dreamer cannot bring the dream into its consecutive order which is necessary for its 

presentation. Again and again he hesitates, while attempting this, because it remains 

unclear, in what consecutive order this or that dream element occurred. Although such 

a dream can very well be called significant and meaningful and at the same time 

pointing to the visible realm and hence being directional and matched to a presentation 

requiring consecutive order, the rationally reconstructing dreamer does not succeed in 

putting the individual dream elements into the order of a firm succession. How can this 

be explained? If I dare give a hint of my own, since I'm not a professional psychologist, 

this hint may be regarded by psychologists, as far as they know this kind of dream, as a 

contribution to dream interpretation. And it is less the hint I am giving, but the hint this 

type of dream itself gives with regard to its origin. Since the meaning of these dreams is 

significant, they are not at all chaotic. With their resistance to a rational presentation 

requiring succession, they make their origin known as well as the ir character: they 

mirror in a certain sense the at-once structure of the invisible origin that appears dream- 

like in the inner realm of the psyche, but opens itself only with difficulties to the security 

demand of the mental-rational consciousness. This at-once structure is insofar a salient 

feature of the origin, since it is “timeless” before all times and hence undivided, but 

contains potentially the three phases of t he appearing terrestrial time. 

In this type of dreams our participation in the impact of the archaical, of the pristine, 

becomes noticeable; from the structural point of view they are not only deep dreams 

but, as I would like to call them, core dreams. The concept archaical should not be 

understood here art-historically or as a synonym for “primitive” but with regard to 

consciousness and in that sense as it has been defined in “The Ever-present Origin” for 

the archaical consciousness structure, valid also for the undivided pristine 

consciousness. [15] From this, all three consciousness structures presently constituti ng 

ourselves have emanated and are still emanating th at will shortly be mentioned again. 

Looked at it this way, it turns out that such core dreams contain, or are, a self 

representation of the simultaneity or, better of the ‘at-once.’ This ‘at-once’ is inherent as 

a potential in everything that rests archaically in the creative pristine constellation which 

shares our life in its mostly latent and invisible way, unless it even contains its origin. 

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Only G. R. Heyer has pointed at this rare type of dream, as I realized later, in his letter 

of January 15, 1948. Continuing from a brief note in his book “Vom Kraftfeld der Seele” 

(About the Power Fields of the Soul) where he remarks “that not those dreams are most 

‘profound’ which are happening in pictures and scenes. . . but those which are mere 

states.”he writes “that it is well known to the psychologist from his work on the 

interpretation of dreams , that there exists an unsolvable problem insofar, as a 

simultaneous state of one together with the other, possible in the unconscious, can be 

thought and reported only consecutively as soon as it becomes conscious,” an attempt 

which proves unfeasible as he demonstrates with a hunting dream of one of his 

patients. [16] 

In the core dreams a track of the invisible or at least a track of the complex 

constellation inherent in the invisible origin becomes perceivable: its reflection presses, 

so to speak, into the visible and becomes transparent, which makes it evident to the 

mental consciousness. Where this execution of becoming transp arent and evident 

succeeds-in this execution it is no more relevant that it is based on science or belief-our 

three-membered consciousness structure is integrated within or by the pristine universal 

consciousness. 

The insight into these contexts makes accessible to those, who are capable of opening themselves to them without reservation, 

immediately and for ever, the life altering experience of sharing the unexplorable seclusion and the all-illuminating clarity of the 

World Foundation, the Origin, the Tao, the Divine, of God. The Taoist could then claim to have reached Tao, the Hindu to have 

experienced samadhi, the Zen Buddhist to have received satori, the Christian could confess like St.Paul that God dwells in the 

“inaccessible light” and the Athos monk could claim to have perceived the uncreated light. [17] 

All three consciousness structures as mentioned above, the mental-rational, the 

mythical-psychic and the magical-vital are becoming transparent with regard to the 

universal consciousness. But this is equivalent to the mutation into the integral 

consciousness as executed by us. This may be called ‘integral’ from our point of view 

because it is capable to integrate itself consciously with the universal. 

It may be allowed to consider so-called psychical phenomena like the core dreams, as 

belonging to the charming, appalling, sometimes also demonic interim realm, where 

they light up not as flash-like intuitions (originating from the spirit), but as images in the 

twilight zone between invisibility and visibility. But this enables us to execute the 

mutation into the integral, which makes it possible to experience the world no longer as 

only unperspectival-mythical or to grasp the world well-aimed perspectively and hence 

rationa lly, but to perceive it a-perspectively and a-rationally (i.e. freed from 

perspectival fixation and rational target directedness) as a whole down to its origin. 

The Nuclear Process 

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Let us now turn to the nuclear physics example. We owe the remark on a constellation 

in the nuclear physics area, that resembles the timeless constellation of the core 

dreams, to the brilliant observational gift and expressiveness of Werner Heisenberg. 

Both contain the prealigning force of simultaneity which is inherent in the invisible. This 

simultaneity is called “synchronicity” by C.G.Jung, [18] it is however limited to phenomena 

occurring in the glaring visible and being provable in day-to-day life. His meaning of 

simultaneity relates to occurrences different from those becoming visible in the nuclear process 

or in the core dreams. It should be emphasized that the principle of synchronicity is not 

concerned with the simultaneity of different time sections, but with the simultaneous occurrence 

of two events of equal content which are however causally not interrelated. I mention this type of 

occurrence since its evidence offers the potential of a new evaluation of timely processes. 

Synchronicity is not so much simultaneity but acausal coincidence. 

Genuine simultaneity of different time sections may however in its comprehensive 

meaning be understood as timelessness. Using the term “simultaneity” that contains the 

concept “time” while having to designate something that eliminates the timely aspect, 

thus leading to the concept of “timelessness” indicates again the terminological difficulty 

already mentioned. Since the “simultaneity” contains also the aspect of coincidence, e.g. 

of two synchronistic events, it may be replaced by the term “timelessness” only in a 

restricted sense, since it excludes any events which are always tied to specific times. 

Therefore I suggested the term “at once” that contains the time only in a hidden sense, 

since the at-once contains the timeless aspect. While becoming conscious of the 

character and the structure of the at-once that denies the timely aspect, since it 

expresses a constellation existing before any time, and hence containing the time only 

as a potential, we understand “at once” that we are not only dealing with a timeless 

structure, where there is no time, but with a much richer structure. After all, the 

invisible origin extends its impact from its pretemporary cons tellation into the 

temporary present. Therefore its “at-once” is timeless only as far as we consider it 

merely from its presence permanently acting within us. When realizing its presence it 

becomes more evident, and when we take it into account the timelessness changes into 

the consciously realized freedom of time: origin and presence are an “at-once,” freed 

from time and freeing ourselves from it. The realms of origin and presence, rationally 

separated by mistake, obtain in their ‘at-once’ a wealth, which has up to now never 

consciously been realized. The consciously realized ‘at-once’ of both realms i s the 

enrichment, that comes into effect in the achieved freedom of time. [19] 

The ultimate degree of this effect consists of our understanding of reality becoming 

transparent, thanks to the freedom of time (that includes the ego freedom, i.e., being 

liberated from the ego instead of a regress into egolessness), since it realizes the whole 

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as an interplay of origin and presence and hence of the invisible and the visible. In this 

transparency that great event may occur, which the Athos monks called seeing the 

“uncreated light,” which was called by St. Paul (in the first letter to Timothy [6, 16]) the 

“inaccessible light” in which “God dwells.” 

Some of this transparency which, differently described, is also inherent in the “Invisible 

Origin” irradiates as a remote possibility and potential not only the core dreams but also 

the nuclear realm. 

In his lecture “Nuclear Physics and Causal Law” Werner Heisenberg points out “that 

within very small space-time-domains, i.e. in ranges of dimensions of elementary 

particles, space and time are strangely blurred in such a way, that one can no longer 

define correctly the concepts earlier and later. Macroscopically the space-time-structure 

would remain unaltered, but when experimenting in very small space-time-domains, one 

should be aware that processes could run in a timely reverse order as compared to its 

causal sequence” [20]    (See also p.20) 

The “very small space-time-domains” characterizing the nuclear process and situated 

almost in the invisible, indicate the same constellation as we have met in the core 

dreams. That in the atomic constellation certain “processes apparently run in a reverse 

direction as compared to their causal sequence” indicates nothing else, but that cause 

and effect are not only interchanged but “it is no longer possible to define correctly the 

concepts earlier and later,” since there is no more earlier or later. This applies also to 

the core dreams, where the reporter is unable to tell whether this or that element 

occurred earlier or later, making it impossible for him to deduce a causal sequence, an 

order of events, out of the constellation. Here and there time is not yet existent, at least 

not in its present form. Thus simultaneity or the ‘at-once’ dominate also in these high- 

intensity atomic constellations. 

At a higher degree of differentiation in an Aristotelian-Thomistic sense and therefore 

sometimes overexposed as compared to my remarks on the ‘at-once,’ the 

phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius ensues the just quoted statement of Werner 

Heisenberg and assumes “that it may become necessary to take also the time to be 

quantized in nuclear processes. There must exist smallest durations of time” quanta are 

a physics concept for smallest undividable quantities“ during which time does not flow. 

Within a time element there would be no ‘it will be’ and ‘it was.’ The processes would 

run in a mode of being of equal actuality.” Hence “an exactly ontological explanation of 

the nature of empirical time [arrives] equally at a time quantized in its very basis.” With 

this definition Conrad-Martius is close to what I designated the at-once structure of the 

invisible origin (she calls it the “the very basis”) which becomes clear in her statement: 

“A singular quantum of being and time can therefore not be understood as timely or 

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even measured.” [21]  With this she expells the time quantum out of the temporality of 

this world. But should it not be seen as a first growth into the visible out of the time 

form called by her the “eonic world time,” “standing between our time and Godís 

eternity,” ? “In the eonic reality” which is und erstood in the Aristotelian sense as cyclic, 

“the future already exists and the past remains, since everything is totally present,” to 

quote from a presentation of her conception by Gebhard Frei. [22] But the total 

presence without “being” and “remaining” and without the Aristotelian corresponding 

antinomy calling it cyclic, this is the signature of the pristine at-once which appears 

psychical in the core dream and physical in the nuclear process and if at all locally 

bound-is only there present. 

Apart from all this one should not forget that these nuclear processes, even when 

recognizing certain limitations, are the foundations of life and of our entire physical 

construction. In the core dreams as well as in the physical processes, that pristine 

ground constellation is represented in its adequate manner, which is also valid for the 

most inner nature of the human, as long as he is staying in the invisible. Everything 

there is unblocked by space and time, the keystones of the visible. There the spiritual 

core of the human is conceived, since also the disciples were-albeit special humans. 

There the elementary particles of atoms as structural elements of matter are being 

composed. There the basic constellation of his latent inner nature appears to the 

human, when carried out of space and time into deep sleep. In all three forms 

represented so far, there rests the imperishable core and germ of the human, of matter 

and of-it may be allowed to say-the human soul. There it is determined what later, 

when passing into the visible, expresses itself as fate and is interpreted as evolution 

which, when seen in this manner, are only secondary processes of the space-time-free 

basic constellation in the invisible. 

The Present Future 

At least the occidental part of humanity is still largely future oriented. It still has not 

realized that it chases after what is already its own. This chase is in the end a flight, i.e. 

a flight out of the presence which, apart from the past, contains also the future events. 

For all those who are sympathetic to the thought that evolution is a secondary process, 

the above classification of the future should not be difficult. 

In earlier works and in other contexts I have frequently drawn attention to various 

statements of physicists, poets, painters and others who have consciously formulated 

this new assessment of time including the future. 

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Premonition and Foresight 

Before coming back to those statements I may remind of certain events that everybody 

has heard of and which have occurred with certainty and may have happened even to 

some readers personally. They are nonetheless denied to some extent, at best the 

conclusions a re not drawn from them and the event itself is being plaid down. We are 

dealing with those cases where the persons concerned have escaped their certain 

death. They followed a premonition, so to speak, a foresight. A flight already booked is 

not boarded immediately before take-off, although there are only a few steps to the 

entrance. Even the expensive ticket price does not keep them from following their 

inspiration not to fly with that particular airplane. Several hours later the news is 

broadcast that this airplane is crashed and all passengers dead. 

In this context it may be reminded of the well-known foresight the young Goethe had 

after his farewell from Friederike Brion at Sesenheim. After a brief description of this 

wrench he reports: 

Now I went on horseback on the footpath towards Drusenheim, and there 

one of the most peculiar foresights overcame me. I saw, not with my bodily 

eyes, but with the eyes of the mind, me myself coming towards me on the 

same footpath on horseback and clothed as I never was: it was pike grey 

with a little gold in it. As soon as I shook myself out of this dream the 

appearance had vanished. It is however strange that I wore this cloth eight 

years later not by choice but by accident, when I traveled the same path to 

visit Friederike again. Whatever the background of these things, the strange 

phantom gave me some comfort in that instance of separation. [23] 

Those cases that irritate the rational human conduce him easily to deny the well- 

founded premonition, to call preconceptions like those of Goethe hallucinations and to 

dismiss events like these as accidents, since he still believes that there are only blind 

accidents. They do exist; but let us be careful, blind accidents are a small minority. 

Everybody who has still some connection to the invisible knows that the majority of 

cases considered to be accidents are acts of providence. These acts of providence may 

also be called correspondences that exist between the inner constellation of the 

individual and the outer of his environment. These correspondences may however 

become effective only if the individual is deeply trustful and unintentionally “in the 

order”: In that case the events coming naturally to him correspond to his predecision 

which, innate from the invisible and sprung from the Divine, is the basic chord of his life 

may this be of a tragical or a blissful kind. 

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For those separated however, not only the above-mentioned cases of premonition and 

foresight are enigmas, but also the agraphon of Ephraem and the confirming statements 

of the disciples. After all, future events must not be predictable. What would happen to 

the freedom of decision if the future is already predetermined in advance? Humans, 

who conclude in this way, feel degraded to the puppet of fa te, but they are merely at 

the mercy of that intellect which has lost the rebonding, the religion, into the evidence 

of the invisible. They know nothing of the pregiven and by the individual condecided 

course of life, to which he who was saved from crash remains faithful, since he obeyed 

his “inner voice,” as it is said. In addition-to remain with this example the waiver of the 

flight was only obedience and faithfulness to his predetermined course of life. It was his 

personal freedom to decide to take the flight or to leave it. A renunciation of freedom of 

will (in the sense of freedom of decision) is therefore out of the question. 

Three Types of Statements 

The actuality of the future as described so far, is only real as far as this is at all 

rationally conceivable, as far as we accept the complex constellation in the invisible, 

which can bring its central at-once into representation only as a succession, i.e. a timely 

flow of life. Several scientists like philosophers and psychologists, artists and poets have 

already expressed the knowledge around the fact that the time-phase future of this 

world may be simultaneously inherent also in the other time phases of this world. 

It is quite difficult to coordinate their statements which are different with regard to 

starting point and terminology. Only the respect for the intellectual integrity and severity 

of the researcher in question will then guarantee that statements, meant and intended 

differently, are not carelessly interrelated. This risk can be avoided by paying special 

attention to the basic structure and the essential reference of those statements, and 

less to the intellectual and linguistic formulations of the specific science. If this does not 

happen, the different styles of physics, philosophy, psychology, of the artists and poets 

form an unsurmountable obstacle for revealing collectively new intellectual approaches 

which, while visible in their basic stucture, may remain incompatible in their expressions. 

Since we deal in these statements with references to the all-inherent basic structure of 

the invisible origin (references for the first time formulated exoterically and 

dispassionately), any protest against the diffamation of the readings of these basic 

common structures as being mere speculation is unnecessary. Each theme has its own 

dignity or indignity. The dignity of the theme of this script renders any careless 

proceeding impossible. It is always good to know what one does. This is certainly 

difficult. But with this theme such a knowledge is necessary. 

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It is of course not possible to quote all the accessible statements here. There have been 

far too many in the last millennia. As an example, I have dared to comment the Tao 

according to our present consciousness structure. I will limit myself to statements of our 

century, since its wisdom is based in recent sources, ways of thinking and expression. 

This appears to me decisive as well as relevant and obliging for our present 

understanding of ourselves and the world. They are all a reference to the presently 

emerging new i ntegral consciousness. Since they represent a hardly recognized 

counterbalance to the prevalent destructive instinct with their depth and their 

recognition of all that the majority appears to discard, a reference to them may certainly 

be appropriate. This even more so, since those making these statements are 

personalities of world esteem. There are the physicists Arthur Stanley Eddington, 

Werner Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan; philosophers like Sri Aurobindo who is much 

more than a philosopher; psychologists like C. G. Jung and G. R. Heyer; researchers of 

the future like Aldous Huxley and Robert Jungk; painters like Paul Cézanne, Paul Klee 

and Pablo Picasso; poets like StÈphane Mallarmé, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Marcel 

Proust, R. M. Rilke, Robert Musil, T.S. Eliot, Jorge Guillén. With all of them, three types 

of statements can be distinguished: 

With some the insight into the actuality of the future expresses itself 

unspoken in the fact that in their statements the inner execution can be 

recognized, which I had called in my writings the “overcoming of time”; 

in the statements of others their experience, consciously or not, of the 

nearness to the origin appears; 

and there are those, who either deductively or spontaneously articulate 

distinctly in brief sentences, which become key sentences, the fact that 

future is presence. 

Additional comments to this disposition: 

the overcoming of time is condition for the at-once structure as part of the 

invisible to become evident: 

only this evidence enables obliging statements to be made about presence 

and effectiveness of the origin, which p rotrudes into and engraves the 

space-time-world; 

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only after this overcoming has happened or has been perceived, the 

realization of the validity of this at-once for presence and future also for this 

world becomes possible. 

This makes it clear that I do not try to give a merely mental-rational explanation of this 

extremely complex and basic constellation, which is based on belief, knowledge and 

recognition, but that I endeavour this basic constellation to become evident and 

transparent to our intensified consciousness in an a-rational, integral way. 

The Overcoming of Time 

It may be advisable to start with two examples which appear at first sight to be 

harmless if not irrelevant, but are highly symptomatic. It is about the titles of two books 

that appeared in 1944 in London and 1952 in Bern. Only thirty to fourty years ago these 

titles would have let the books pass without notice; quite different twentyfive to 

seventeen years ago: at that time they were immediately widely discussed and accepted 

despite all the astonishment and bewilderment. 

At first it was the title that Aldous Huxley gave to his novel: “Time Must Have a Stop.” 

This title is a Shakespeare citation. Unfortunately its German translation: “Zeit mufl 

enden” gives the wrong impression of the authorís intention. [24] What Aldous Huxley 

meant, was briefly to show the necessity to reduce the exclusive validity of the 

measured time to its appropriate measure. Not the time in the sense of the Shakespeare 

quotation comes to an end, but the three-phase time consideration or handling, i.e. it 

“must have a stop” in order to make the participation of the more essential “time” 

acceptable, that contains by means of the at-once potentially also our time and reaches 

into our day-to-day life. That this was his final intention Aldous Huxley confirmed to me 

in May 1954 in St. Paul de Vence. These facts, that distinguish his book, are equivalent 

to the attempt to overcome the sole validitity of the time of this world and to give 

conscious recognition to the pristine at-once for its effectiveness down here. This 

recognition of what I call the founded at-once is however also the recognition that 

future is always presence. 

By the way and this must unfortunately be stated here this keen sense of smell of 

Aldous Huxley's for the genuine values and for the transparency that follows not only 

from the overcoming of the Shakespearean understanding of time as confirmed by him, 

but also from his appreciation of Stéphan Mallarmé's stat ement [25] that he proved 

with “time must have a stop” and his ”Philosophia perennis,” this is only the one side of 

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his nature. Tragically it remained intellectual yearning he apparently was unable to 

fulfill, since otherwise he had not become the propagandist of the synthetic mescalin 

(with his book “The Doors of Perception”) and the trigger of the epidemic of drug 

addiction that contaminates presently mainly the large jouth groups in Europe and 

America: To the genuine demand of the modern youth which is commendably revolting 

against the dullness of an excessive material wealth to this demand for extraordinary 

experiences (only attainable through self-work: through purging towards the invisible 

origin by means of gradually discerning the more intensive integral consciousness), 

which are matching the material “wealth,” he had opened the easy evasion to find the 

desired experiences without self-work through narcotism; but “inspiration” thus gained 

by trickery is doomed to death. 

The other title expresses this constellation of presence and future more clearly although 

the book itself is more pragmatic than Huxley's. It was Robert Jungk, one of the 

soundest and fairest contemporary journalists and one of the most significant 

researchers of the future who gave his book about future questions of the American (as 

well European) civilization the title: “The Future Has Already Begun.” [26] That the 

meaning of this title which, one would think, contradicts the general thinking of the 

time, has been accepted (notwithstanding certain misinterpretations) indicates that this 

novel concept was subliminally already generally valid. This fact appears to me 

symptoma tic and justifies mentioning in this context the book titles of these two 

important authors. 

A similarly executed overcoming of time shows in the perception already contained in 

the statement of Werner Heisenberg above, that the sequence of time and hence the 

dependence of cause and effect can be reversed. [27] Pascual Jordan who founded 

quantum biology together with Erwin Schrodinger and Ernst Dessauer, [28] and who 

also investigated philosophically the “problem of simultaneity” [29] writes: 

. . . as a result of the quantum theory and its study of mesons, for example, 

we have learned something new about time and causality. On occasion, 

with or inside the explosion of an atomic nucleus under bombardment of a 

very fast particle of matter, the usual order of events is reversed: the 

explosion comes first, then followed by its cause. This has enormous 

implications for psychology and parapsychology, since such reversals of the 

cause-and-effect sequence are proved possible and philosophically valid. 

[30] 

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That these deductions from nuclear processes can presently not only be drawn, but can 

be shown to be relevant, may well be taken as an overcoming of the prevailing time 

thinking: the projecting of the pristine at-once structure into our three-dimensional 

world is thus implicitly accepted. Because in the origin, earlier and later, cause and 

effect and the three time phases are an at-once. If this at-once lights up in our three- 

dimensionally limited and observed world, this minimal motion element conveys to us 

the impression of an open directional tendency that represents to our mental capacity, 

to our interpretation and to our descriptional capability also a reversed sequence of 

events. 

Before we turn to the statements of some poets we should mention the achievements of 

C. G. Jung that have by themselves contributed to a newly founded assessment of time. 

The synchronicity principle of C. G. Jung, which is limited to the empirical investigation 

and clarification of non-causal or accidental but meaningfully connected coincidences in 

every-day events, has already been mentioned. [31] Any coincidence is a form of the at- 

once in accordance with its simultaneity character, although only a faint reflexion of its 

genuine invisible primitive form-as long as one may call the at-once structure a form, 

since it is from our point of view at the same time formless. 

Any synchronicity event is characterized by its non-causal structure that C. G. Jung 

called “acausal”-a terminologically regrettable denotation since, i nstead of the negation 

“non-,” the Greek “alpha negativum” is being used, which may however also be used as 

the “alpha privativum” (the liberating “a” ), which expresses no negation but a 

liberation. I have therefore always distinguished between uncausal (or non-causal), 

which denotes a state “before” causality and acausal which describes being liberated 

with regard to consciousness (meaning freedom from causality). The acausality or 

freedom from causality is effective where we live as ego-free (but not ego-less) in the 

order, i.e. in accordance with the world total, the origin or whatever these concepts be 

called. Although some parallelism exists between the non-causality of synchronous 

events and that of nuclear processes, as already C.G. Jung points out, it appears to me 

that synchronous events occur within the precausal or not-yet-causal magical structure. 

Instead of the causal connex it is associated with the vital connex, the pec uliarity and 

effectiveness of which I showed for the magical structure. [32] In any case, this concept 

of Jung shows the psychological attempt to overcome the mere running time by 

recognizing the non-causal or precausal structure. 

C. G. Jung came a step closer to the original constellation by researching the 

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“anticipatory dreams.” [33] They are dreams which anticipate future events. The mostly 

symbolically predreamed events have later come into the life of the dreamer as reality. 

He as a psychologist locates the source for these phenomena into the mightiness of the 

better knowledgable unconsciousness-so to speak into the psychical mirroring of the at- 

once that contains also the future. 

As to the statements of poets we will first quote those by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 

Marcel Proust and Robert Musil. They contain, each in its way, a mostly unspoken 

reference to the “overcoming of time” or “overcoming of the time concept” as I named 

it first in the book “Occidental Transformation” (1942/43). [34] 

Wherever we meet with the attempt to overcome the exclusive validity of this world's 

time, we may classify it as one of the indications for the new consciousness in man 

beginning to be constellated. The trigger for these attempts is the beginning of “the 

breaking of time.” I have described it in detail in “The Ever-present Origin.” [35] We are 

concerned with the “genuine, qualitative time” becoming conscious, which has only 

temporarily been called time, since our time of this world, quantitatively counted or 

measured, has followed from it. In the end we are concerned with the “breaking of the 

at-once” into our consciousness. Our attempt to overcome this worldís time is a reply 

and consequence to this breaking, which is always lit up by the perception of the always 

present invisible origin. Where this overcoming is successful, the world becomes 

transparent down to every-day life and we as well to ourselves. This becoming 

transparent of what formerly confronted each other dualistically as subject and object, 

is a further indication for the formation of the integral consciousness. Only transparency 

enables the consciousness to become integral. And only due to this realization those 

dualisms become invalid without intoxication or trance or loss of identity being required 

or caused, and furthermore, ego-freedom becomes possible without being threatened to 

lapse down into ego-loss. The overcoming of time leads finally into freedom of time and 

to a conscious participation in the at-once. But the condition for all this is the breaking 

of the at-once having become conscious to us, this at-once not only being part of the 

universal consciousness and the origin, but appearing to be identical with them. 

This breaking of the at-once had been named “involution” by Sri Aurobindo; we will 

describe this in the next but one section which is dealing with the manifestations of the 

actuality of the future. 

In the fragmentary novel “Andreas oder die Vereinigten” by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 

which had been published out of his unpublished works as late as 1932, the following 

note, probably written around 1908/12, is worth quoting: “Poetry as presence. The 

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mystical element of poetry: overcoming of time.” 

Hugo von Hofmannsthal has thus coined the phrasing “Overcoming of time” thirty years 

before I did. In the end he had the same in mind as I. But his way was different from 

mine. He started from the irrational and replaced religious experince by a mystical 

poetic one, corresponding to his field of life. Even if the ‘breaking of the at-once’ had 

been also his trigger, he nonetheless placed the path for overcoming the time into the 

identification of this process with the mythical element of poetry. In the end this path, 

when consistently followed, means falling back consciously into the “unio mystica” that 

includes the ego-sacrifice, even the ego-loss: hence a fallback into the mythical 

consciousness frequency which oscillates fundamentally through the world of poetry. 

This frequency enables the deeply moved to immerse himself into the all-unity; there 

the ego expires in the rapture or the trancelike state of all-unification: Hofmannsthal 

mentions in his notes not accidentally the easte rn path. At present it is no more 

sufficient, from an occidenal point of view, to make presence stand out against day-to- 

day life by means of poetry, and to realize the overcoming of unpoetic time by means of 

its mystical element. The actual path does not lead into loss of ego, thanks to the 

consciously realized breaking of the at-once but via egocentricity out into the freedom 

of ego, into freedom from ego and egocentricity. This is no more mystical overwhelming 

or absorption (the traditional kind of samadhi) but the sober participation in the origin, 

that happens not in a holy intoxication but in the extreme clarity of transparency, when 

the intrinsic invisible becomes perceivable in a sudden illumination (satori), [36] 

irradiating everything. 

In a similarly dangerous proximity to the predominantly mythical consciousness 

frequency works Marcel Proust, however without losing control of it. At the closing of 

the last volume “Le temps retrouvé” (Time recovered) of his opus magnum “A la 

recherche du temps perdu”-and by that he did probably not mean childhood, as is 

commonly assumed, but the lost at-once he writes: 

“When a noise or a fragrance, once perceived and smelled long time ago, 

reappears-at the same time present and past, real and not only actual, ideal 

and yet not abstract, the permanent being, normally hidden to the things, 

feels suddenly freed, and our true and occasionally seemingly dead ego 

reawakens and animates itself through the heavenly nutrition streaming to 

it. One minute, free from the order of time, has recreated the human within 

us-in order to sense it-free from the orders of time.” [37] 

For him it is the recollection which initiates the streaming of the “heavenly nutrition” 

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which means probably, what has been called here the “breaking of the at-once” which 

“frees the permanent being, normally hidden to the things,” when given “one minute 

free from the order of time.” During that minute which recreated (!) him as a human 

being, a conscious overcoming of this world's order of time is executed: he recovered 

the “time lost” at the end of his great work. 

The intention to overcome time may also be seen in the early unpublished notes of 

Robert Musil on his novel “Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften” (The Man Without Attributes). 

He notes: “Don't narrate in time sequence . . . represent time as unreal” [38] 

But this is equivalent to stepping out of the “order of time”; this stepping out can 

however only enable to be creative, where the overcoming of time with its sequential or 

consecutive order could be executed in such a way, that the at-once could become the 

saving life force: the at-once, having no attributes, makes also a man or a human being 

without attributes possible, who is time free by participating in the origin and hence 

without attributes, i.e. freed from the superficially own, egolike, and also turned ego- 

free. To him our this-worldís time may well appear unreal in view of the reality of the 

whole, although this is a big restraint; to represent it in this way helps possibly to 

overcome it; not to deny it would be the more important an d greater achievement. In 

any case, and this should be emphasized and repeated: it helps only insofar, as the 

unreality of time does not mean denial of time. Its denial would be flight into 

timelessness and hence self-renunciation. 

The Nearness to the Origin 

These examples for the various types of overcoming of time made already their initiator 

visible: the breaking of the at-once. An even closer nearness to the origin can be seen 

from the following examples. 

This proximity to the origin appears in the description of atomic nuclear processes by 

Werner Heisenberg, which have already been cited. As a physicist he refrains from any 

interpretation. The lucidity of his uncompromising thinking and the excellent clarity of 

his rep resentation lead however to the assumption, that he knows quite well about the 

conclusions, that can be drawn from the facts he reports. A suggestion for this we find 

in the albe it cautious expositions following the quoted description since “one can 

already now have hardly any doubts that the e volution of the latest nuclear physics will 

in this context (the laws of cause and effect) have again some impact on the 

philosophical realm” [39] 

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Even if we accept and take into consideration all the reservations which indicate that it 

is not permissible to compare the results from different fields of science and experience 

with one another, it is yet allowed to point at the parallelism of the most diverse 

findings. But this must not be the careless identification of research results from 

different origin. This would be based on a mere and even only apparent similarity, 

which would however not be appropriate to the dissimilar emergence of the results, and 

would lack the due respect for the objective and severe mental effort of the individual 

researchers who are obliged to their branches. But it appears not unjustified to point, 

wherever a parallelism is evident, at the coincident basic structure that is common to 

the different findings. Supposed the at-once structure as sketched above has its 

appropriate effect nature as an inherent attribute in the invisible origin, and whose 

impact has become at least obvious in our life, we must again emphasize that the basic 

structure of the atomic constellation as described by Werner Heisenberg as well as of 

the core dreams, are identical. The other examples as mentioned above should have 

substantiated this. This at-once structure, common to all the phenomena mentioned, 

which show it or have it concluded by us, since it mirrors in them physically, psychically 

or poetically, refer us to the proximity of the mentioned phenomena to the origin. The 

description of Werner Heisenberg is of an initiating importance. The above cited 

statements of Pascual Jordan are based on it. That this phenomenon, formerly 

interpreted as a reversability of time, has since (1955/56) been interpreted differently 

by utilizing mathematical theoretical tools which were not available in 1952, does in no 

way constrain the basic constellation of the at-once, which Werner Heisenberg has 

made visible with his description of the nuclear processes: thanks to him the deepest 

secret of the origin has become transparent. 

The statement of Arthur Stanley Eddington deals with a different matter. It is an 

interpretation based on the notion of Einstein's space-time-continuum, which can be 

understood statically, and on the different observer points of view in relativity theory: 

Events do not happen; they are just there, and we come across them. “The 

formality of taking place” is merely the indication that the observer has on 

his voyage of exploration passed into the absolute future of the event in 

question; and it has no important significance. [40] 

Whatever the attitude towards this statement of A.S.Edd ington's which, by the way, 

comes pretty clos e to a statement of T.S. Eliot, as we will see later, the impression 

arises that Eddington, so to speak, walked along the unfathomable at-once, where the 

events do not arrive because everything has allways been there (as far the at-once 

owns a location, what may be doubted), so that he meets them on his way-since in this 

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view only he has a way, what seduces many to talk of progress. 

Not representation but experience is the basis for the statement of the artist who 

liberated painting not accidentally from threedimensional perspectival viewing, and 

disclosed transparency to it. He, Paul Cézanne, coined the word which contains by itself 

this transparency: 

Je me sens coloré par toutes les nuances de l'Infini. Je ne fais plus qu'un 

avec mon tableau. (I feel colored by all nuances of the infinite. I am merely 

one with my picture). [41] 

This participation in the infinite that contains and irradiates everything like the origin if 

not identical with it-is genuine nearness to the origin: the harmony of human and 

universe, the overcoming of the dualism of the creator, the painter, and the created, the 

picture. “Colored by all nuances of the infinite”-that is the breaking of the at-once, is the 

liberation from the threedimens ionality down here, from which at his time CÈzanne had 

liberated the art of painting. 

According to his n otion A. S. Eddington sees the “world” of the at-once still as a vis-a- 

vis since he encounters its events; but Cézanne participates in it. This becomes even 

clearer by another statement of Cézanne's which we mention later. 

In a rather unsuspected manner another painter shares this participation, which many 

would not have expected: Picasso. There exist numerous references to this respect. 

Whoever knows his fairly rare pictures, which stand out for their transparency, freed 

from matter (through them and in them glows the transparency of the world), will not 

be surprised that there exist also statements beside the picture references which 

irradiate the same transparency: 

“I am amazed at the improper use of the word ‘development.’ I do not 

develop-I am. In the art there is neither past nor future. The art of the 

Greeks or the Egypts is not past; it is more alive today than it ever was. 

Alteration does not mean development.” [42] 

And the other statement: “They call me a seeker, I am not seeking, I am finding.” [43] 

Whoever lives in the at-once which is all and nothing and refrains from development, he 

is living; or better: he in whom the at-once lives and is more effective than in the 

blessed few is present, he is; neither past nor future matter to him, he need not seek, 

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he bears the target within him. 

These two statements are in addition distinctly Taoist. I know about Picasso's 

knowledge and admiration of the Chinese sages. Who does not seek, resembles the 

messenger “Intentionless,” whom the yellow emperor sent out to find the large magic 

pearl he lost on the way back from the northern provinces. The first three messengers 

“Knowledge,” “Clarity,” and “Eloquence” he had sent to search, as Dschuang Dsi 

narrated in one of his parabels, returned without it. Only “Intentionless,” who did not 

search but participated in the Tao, found it. [44] He who possesses Tao, who bears the 

target within him and need not search for it outside, and to whom the things come by 

themselves, he participates also in the invisible light that dwells within the Tao. At least 

an inkling of this is contained in Picassoís statement: 

“One has the sun inside the body with a thousand rays. All else does not 

count.” [45] 

But then, also that does not count which is presently very important to many: 

No la fachada de las cosas, sino su estructura secreta. (Not the façade of things is 

imp ortant but their hidden structure). [46] 

The “hidden structure” which is invisible and knows no development, no past, no 

searching, no future: it might be the structure of the at-once; it causes the “sun with a 

thousand rays”; it is his glowing-that dwells in Picasso's eyes. This glowing turns those 

of his works transparent which were mentioned above. Above all: this sea of glowing 

radiation that streams through the human and bears him and interweaves him with that 

“otherworldly ” cheerfulness, with that most inner and protecting kindness which is 

sober-clear and all-embracing love. This is the most inner transformation or moderation 

that a human can experience, thanks to the breaking of the at-once into a human: no 

development; once transformed thereto, a permanent being that cannot be lost. Also 

Picasso states this: 

Basically there is only love. No matter what. [47] 

Yes, “basically,” but why give everything its location? Hence: “in the end.” But this is 

also “in the origin,” like “basically” means also what is in the origin. Or, as G.R.Heyer 

has named it: “the utmost real (das Letztwirkliche)” [48] he who knew about the secret 

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of the at-once, as we already saw. 

Also Cézanne speaks of this basis: 

Nature is not at the surface but in the depth, the colors are the expression 

of this depth at the surface, they are rising from the roots of the world. [49] 

These roots of the world-what are they if not the basis, the origin? 

In a more opaque manner, i.e. translucent rather than determined like Picasso, Paul 

Klee speaks of them: 

Who would not like to dwell where the central organ of all spacial temporal 

motion initiates all the functions, may this be brain or heart of 

creation? . . . . . in the origin of creation. . . [50] 

And he writes that it be the task of the artist:“to give duration to the genesis (origin)” 

[51] 

 . 

He also hints at the world becoming transparent: 

I more and more see behind, or better through the things. [52] 

In the end he feels at home close to the origin: 

In this world I am not tangible. Since I am dwelling equally with the dead as 

with the unborn. A bit closer to the heart of creation as usual. But far not 

close enough. [53] 

And also Jorge Guillén, the most significant Spanish poet of our century (much more 

important than Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez or Federico García Lorca), 

whose poems own transparency, achieved by nobody else with the possible exception of 

StÈphan Mallarm&ecaute; and T.S.Eliot: 

Dónde estan cuándo ocurren? No hay historia. 

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Hubo un ardor que es este ardor. Un dÌa 

Solo, profundizado en la memoria, 

A su eterno presente se confía [54] 

which reads, translated freely and considering the context: The events : “Where are 

they, when do they happen? There is no history/There was a glowing and it still glows/A 

single day deeply intruded into remembering/Entrusts itself to the unperishable 

presence.” 

The Actuality of the Future 

When we now put together the statements of T. S. Eliot, Stéphane Mallarmé, Rainer 

Maria Rilke and Sri Aurobindo (concluding my remarks) under the aspect of the actuality 

of the f uture, it is mainly for two reasons: it complements our already represented 

conception of the “actuality of the future” that should have become evident in most of 

the above statements and is in the end the basic theme of “The Ever-Present Origin.” 

The second reason: since these two conceptions complement one another they form 

together a whole: they are the two poles of the invisible origin, as soon as it appears in 

this world's realm-always remembering that speaking of “this world” and “the other 

world” in this context and thus presuming a non-existing dualism, is a rational violation 

of the arational, archaic reality “origin.” 

As we can see always only the face or the back of a coin but know, that the other 

invisible side is present since only the two sides together form the valid coin, in this way 

we also know, that only the appearance in the presence, of the origin as well as of the 

future, torn apart by the dominant consecutive order, warrant the whole, the invisible 

origin. 

But here again we see, what was pointed at already at the beginning of this treatise: 

the complexity of the theme, its protrusion beyond the three-dimensional, on the other 

hand an intrusion into our world of consecutive order, complicate any mental statement, 

since this fixes something unfixable and thus disfigures also itself. 

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Many may disapprove of my statements having terminologically not been formulated 

sharper; that not everything moves from b to c, as we are not only justified to do so 

with this worldís phenomena, but have to think and conclude, following the trained 

consecutive order. 

By the way, the descendency and evolution theory as mentioned by G. R. Heyer [55] , is 

a typical example for the false projection of our way of engraved and causally 

safeguarding thinking into natureís processes; it is not so, that the natural processes, as 

far as we are dealing with processes at all, would run linearly according to our way of 

thinking, only because we had started thinking linearly on a single track. I am certain 

there are gaps in the line. They are the breaking points for the invisible, for the at-once. 

All of a sudden a change occurs, a transformation which has nothing to do with 

development: the sequence of events reverses; on the way from b to c it may go back 

to a, or it circumvents c and is unforeseen at d , or it sidesteps at c1 or at c2 , or takes a 

second track at b2. Without these gaps, these breaking points, we were cut off. And 

would dry out. This threatens us presently and could happen, if there were not those, 

whose statements are cited on these pages. 

The gaps worry the rationalist; there should not be any empty spots as little as there 

should be a moment of silence in a social gathering-this is misunderstood as stagnation, 

since all the time something has to happen, “something must go.” Much fear, insec urity 

and hopelessness are hiding behind this attitude. Unnecessary fears, since the empty 

spots are not so much empty b ut at the same time open; in them d wells our openness 

to the unlimited openness of the invisible. 

The basic phenomena, the invisible origin and the at-once, are by their very nature, 

neither compatible with nor describable by our thinking process. They evade the 

possibility of being described; in the end they cannot be described at all. At best they 

can be approached. No concept may sketch them, no linearity suits them. They are, as 

far as they “are” at all, something of more than thousand aspects, full of openness and 

open plenty. Is the origin identical with the at-once (as far as the origin may be 

associated with a structure)? Yes and no and neither of both. Such like the invisible is 

invisible and yet visible: but for what type of eyes? But whether invisible or visible-they 

are also transparent; transparency irradiates either. This is valid only for those who 

realize, that the final truth can be perceived, neither represented nor observed but very 

well perceived. This perceiving (Wahr-Nehmen) is, how the integral consciousness 

realizes, whereas the magical is bound to events, the mythical to experience and 

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viewing, the mental-rational to concluding and representing. Thanks to the integral 

consciousness structure, all structures constituting us, the mental, mythical, magical 

down to the archaic, are becoming transparent to us and hence integratable. 

The becoming transparent mainly of the archaical, the univerasl consciousness of the 

origin, that may be described also as the breaking of the at-once, makes the actuality of 

the future apparent in our only represented three-dimensional world. Only if rated this 

way, only out of the perceived and executed participation in the at-once, many of the 

statements above obt ain a binding truth character. This is particularly valid for a 

statement of T. S. Eliot: 

The things that are going to happen / Have already happened [56] 

This is a mere statement. Statement about the perceived structure of the at-once; 

“there” things are happening this way, and they are happening here as well, since 

“there” future is equally past and may be perceived from here in this manner because 

the invisible origin interweaves everything including our visibilities-the poet has at least 

perceived it. A. S. Eddington formulated it with the same meaning but starting from 

imagination and not from perception. Would it go too far to say that T. S. Eliot saw it 

with the eyes of the at-once? It is by no mean s an insinuation. T. S. Eliot attests this 

himself. It can be concluded from the following verses which he called “dance” since 

this is not a concept and the context gives no reason for misunderstandings. It should 

be clear that it deals with the “utmost real,” the at-onc e or the invisible origin, where 

the utmost divine or deity “stands” or “circles.” The question appearing again and again 

(terminologically) is the following: is it permitted to distinguish in the immensity, 

“where” all this happens, “where” it “is” or “is not,” “stands” or “circles.” I think, no. 

This makes understanding impossible: but it helps perceiving. T. S. Eliot knew very well 

why he poses a basic phenomenon of life, the dance, about which Léopold Sédar 

Senghor had written unique statements [57] , into the center: 

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; 

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, 

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, 

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, 

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point. 

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. 

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. 

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And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time. [58] 

But there, where “past and future are gathered” as Eliot says, where none is cause or 

effect of the other, both together are pure presence and hence expression of the at- 

once structure. 

The mere actuality of the future, which is only one of the potentially appearing aspects 

of the basic phenomenon, appears in a word of Stéphane Mallarmé: “The star matures 

from the to-morrow”; originally: “l'astre merit dés lendemains.” [59] 

The plural “lendemains” leaves no doubt that he means the future. He wrote this 

sentence facing death. 

Some sentences from Rainer Maria Rilke have come upon us which announce the 

actuality of the future. But I am not quite sure how far he wrote them with a clear and 

perceiving consciousness. He was the great unconscious intuitive who caught, almost 

mediumistically, similar to Hugo von Hofmannsthal, much of the world mystery into his 

poetry including his letters. He writes: 

The wishes are the memories that come from our future; 

and Lou Albert-Lasard, who transmitted this statement [60] to us, comments this 

statement according to Rilke, who wanted to say: 

that the future is so-to-speak already contained in the presence, even if ve 

iled, but yet effective. What we call future is as effective as what we call 

past. The two united in us form the full, the eternal presence. 

A. S. Eddington and R. M. Rilke had written these statements approximately at the same 

time and independently from one another at the turning of the years 1923/24. The one 

presumably based on imagination, the other on intuition. Quite different, more 

significant and hence much more relevant is the formulation of Sri Aurobindo that can 

be found on the last pages of one of his main works written in 1920/21. It anticipates 

Rilkeís statement. There is not the slightest doubt that Sri Aurobindo formulated his 

statement in full consciousness and in consequence of his genuine perception of the 

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universal consciousness. Therefore it is highly significant and binding. For this reason it 

shall be extensively cited in its appropriate context. To underline its value his conception 

of “involution” will briefly be introduced which requires an additional comment. 

It should now be pointed at the fact, that all the statements of physicists, psychologists, 

painters and poets as cited above have been formulated completely independently from 

each other. They express essentially coinciding conceptions, opinions and insights which 

are new in this form. We are dealing, as has been shown, with statements, which make 

evident, in the way they are formulated, the courage and the capability to express 

conceptions hitherto not possible to be formulated, since they are not only inadequate 

to the present thinking but are inconceivably alien to it. These statements have been 

expressed verbally in the first two thirds of this century by at least eighteen of its most 

significant personalities. What has happened here? 

Since 1939 I have tried to give an answer to this in my writings: for a new 

consciousness is forming in us. I have called it according to the various starting points 

of my interpretation attempts the aperspectival, the arational and the integral 

consciousness. This accentuated one of its aspects. It is aperspectival, i.e. freed from 

the non-perspectival and the perspectival way of seeing and thinking; it is arational, i.e. 

freed from the prerational, irrational and rational forms of realization; it is integral, since 

all the earlier consciousness structures down to the archaical have become transparent 

to us. Only there the perception of the origin becomes possible, where in hindsight and 

introspectively, neither the darkness of the magical nor the twilight of the mythical nor 

the present daylight of the mental-rational consciousness are an obstacle. Darkness, 

twilight and daylight are with regard to the structure of the at-once impenetrable and 

nontransparent walls; but where the three darkness and brightness grades of the 

consciuosness structures become tranparent to us, also the walls are fading: a more 

intensive consciousness, the integral, managing all the prior consciousness structures in 

a life and spirit conserving way without further violation by them, becomes capable to 

conceive through darkness, twilight and possible dazzle the pristine consciousness, or, 

as Sri Aurobindo calls it, the universal consciousness, the origin. Where this happens, 

our consciousness transforms itself into the integral, thanks to its participation in the 

pristine and cancels all our “gridlike compulsive ideas.” 

Why has this become possible during the last decades? Or better: how was it possible, 

that this could be formulated in the last decades? To assume the human be capable by 

himself to initiate and execute such a spiritual and world transforming change is 

naturally only a belief or rather an anthropocentric hubris. Following the maxim: Who 

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can fabricate the most sophisticated machinery is also capable to make consciousness 

or at least develop it like machinery (modest people are possibly content to talk about a 

continuous “development” of consciuosness). This refers the phenomenon of becoming 

transparent to the fact that we are dealing with a spiritually accentuated event-and the 

spiritual “stands” outside the development and is at best the initiator (but this is already 

an almost unpermitted concession). Vital, psychical and mental forces may “develop,” 

the spiritual force which constellates the new, the integral consciousness, exists outside 

the consecutive steps of development of this world. This leads us to an obvious answer 

to the question just asked: How had the forming of the new consciousness become 

possible? 

It became possible, even necessary, since the human consciousness had exhausted the 

capability of the prior consciousness structures, even the mental-rat ional, to such an 

extent, that their excessive use threatened and partly already led to negative abuses of 

the magical, mystical and mental capabilities. But how is it in life when we have 

exhausted a possibility? To continue life we have to open up new ones, we should be 

open for novelties and ready. That must have been the case. The human was ready for 

a new consciousness possibility and hence a new mode of realization. This evolution 

downward, into exhaustion-looked at it this way also the hectic progress of technology 

is a downfall into the emptiness of mechanical processes-caused the readiness for the 

necessary change and transformation. This readiness is the life-saving achievement of 

the human. That he was able to do this, was already much. But this alone would not 

have sufficed. There were hardly any reserves in the distinctly exhaustive state for any 

development. But despite this an evolution occurred? Had the pristine (the archaic or 

universal) consciousness not answered by itself to the human readiness-or even had it 

not demanded it by itself?-nothing had happened. But then occurred the “breaking of 

the (qualitative) time,” as I formerly called the breaking of the at-once. Thanks to the 

readiness of the human, the at-o nce, sprung from the origin, the more intensive, the 

universal consciousness became effective in the human. 

Sri Aurobindo has already during World War I explained this course of events through a 

conception with which he complemente d that of the evolution (as a this world's 

course). He stipulated for this world's “evolution” the complementing course of the 

“involution.” [61] He described with this formulation the event that our prior 

consciousness may be raised presently by the impact of the universal consciousness, of 

which we know that it is located in the invisible (but without any connection to Hegel's 

Weltgeist!), beyond the merely mental-rational and is enabled to be effective. 

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This breaking of the universal consciousness (I called it the at-once) wakens within us 

the supramental consciousness, as Sri Aurobindo named it. I have already thirty years 

ago and prior to any knowledge of Sri Aurob indo's work, that he had begun more than 

fifty years ago, called this consciousness, presently becoming effective, the 

aperspectival, the arational and the integral. That it can be awakened to-day shows, 

that it is already disposed in us, that the consciousness enhancem ent or mutation-as 

far as it can be understood as an evolutionary event, which is presently taking place, is 

a secondary process, permanently fed by the spiritual force and the transparency of the 

invisible. In addition one should consider that the really novel has already happened, 

when we start assuming it. 

I took the liberty to digress in order to have the phenomenon of the cited key sentences 

appear in a special light; since the statements in the key sentences may be considered 

as an answer of our emerging integral consciousness to the “universal” or 

“supramental,” as Sri Aurobindo calls it, which I had called the archaic-pristine. 

It should be kept in mind: my conception of the emerging of a new consciousness, 

which I realized in winter 1932/33 in a flashlike intuition and started describing since 

1939, resembles to a large extent the world conception of Sri Aurobindo, that was at 

that time unknown to me. [62] Mine is different from his insofar, as it is directed only to 

the Western world and does not have the depth and the gravidity of origin of the 

genially represented conception of Sri Aurobindo. An explanation for this apparent 

phenomenon may be seen in the suggestion, that I was included in some manner within 

the strong field of force as radiated by Sri Aurobindo, similar to the suggestion that the 

statement of Rainer Maria Rilke has much in common with the statement of Sri 

Aurobindo to be cited shortly. Such coincidences of a very relevant kind are explained 

from the rational point of view with the rather superficial saying “that was in the air,” 

and one denotes with this rather vile and vexed indication of origin the unrecognized 

effectiveness of the invisible as well as the realizations become visible. 

Sri Aurobindo speaks-coming back to his statement as already mentioned which is now 

to be cited-of “the memory of the future.” 

Before we cite the whole context of this statement the clarity of Sri Aurobindo's 

formulation about the actuality of the future should be emphasized, which is bound with 

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Rainer Maria Rilke to emotional wishes as being more appropriate to a poet: “The 

(actual) wishes are memories coming from our future.” A coincidence? What and who 

triggered it? Because this thought “was in the air”? To mention again this cheeky 

attempt to explain events that owe their very being to constellations that cannot be 

perceived by the mere intellect. Georg Picht asks rightly in view of this incapability: “Will 

the oriflamme of the threatening world catastrophe have the power to break through 

the blindness of modern thinking?” [63] 

Here now, concluding the many most indirect statements about the new consciuosness 

that makes the invisible origin perceivable to us and which lets us become conscious 

that we are at home down here and in the whole, the passage from Sri Aurobindo's 

work. (His concept of the “mental” should be identical with the “mental consciousness 

structure” according to my wording.) And it should again be emphasized-and I know 

this for certain beyond any doubt-that his statement and his whole work have been 

written down in clear consciousness and thanks to a fully conscious perception: 

All intuitive knowledge comes more or less directly from the light of the self- 

aware spirit entering into the mind, the spirit concealed behind mind and 

conscious of all in itself and in all its selves, omniscient and capable of 

illumining the ignorant or the self-forgetful mind whether by rare or 

constant flashes or by a steady instreaming light, out of its omniscience. 

This all includes all what was, is or will be in time and this omniscience is 

not limited, impeded or baffled by our mental division of the three times 

and the idea and experience of a dead and no longer existent and ill- 

remembered or forgotten past and a not yet existent and therefore 

unknowable future, which is so imperative for the mind in the ignorance. 

Accordingly, the growth of the intuitive mind can bring with it the capacity 

of a time knowledge which comes to it not from outside indices, but from 

within the universal soul of things, its eternal memory of the past, its 

unlimited holding of things present and its prevision or, at it has been by 

[Sri Aurobindo himself] paradoxically but suggestibly called, its memory of 

the future. But this capacity works at first sporadically and uncertainly and 

not in an organised manner. As the force of intuitive knowledge grows, it 

become s more possible to command the use of the capacity and regularise 

to a certain degree its functioning and various movements. An acquired 

power can be established of commanding the material on the main or the 

detailed knowledge of things in the triple time . . . [64] 

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Whoever reads these forceful and clear sentences carefully, will give account of the fact 

that Sri Aurobindo means and describes in his English choice of words those 

phenomena, constellations and the omniscient divine, which all appear, even if only 

partial, in our cited statements. This realization of our participation in everything, that 

“was, is, or will be in time” thanks to the flashlike or steadily instreaming light, which is 

spiritual light, “a sun with a thousand rays” in our body; and also a confirmation that we 

have command of the three time forms (as the omniscient at-once) thanks to our 

mental consciousness consciuosly enhanced into the intuitive, through which it gains in 

a certain sense an integrating consciousness power-these are all authentications of the 

invisible origin around us. It becomes perceivable with the light streaming into us. This 

light is called “truth light” and “apersonal light” by Sri Aurobindo in the secti ons 

following the above passage, by this emphasizing its spiritual quality and invisible origin 

in the “hidden spirit” in the invisible origin. 

The Invisible Origin 

The numerous statements above could be confusing, had they not all two things in 

common: one is their common reference to the “invisible origin,” the other is a common 

diction in which they speak of it; this novel diction is at the same time evidence for the 

fact that they, and the new conceptions and the points of view expressed by them, are 

based on the emerging new consciousness. 

Contrary to earlier times, which knew about this origin in their way and were capable to 

evoke it and tried to become conscious of it in their way symbolically, by mythical 

pictures, by an attempt of reflection, by mystical devotion, by moving sanctification and 

many other expressions (initiations, dances, inspiring receptability for the numinous, 

preaches, instructional conversations)-contrary to these attempts the almost sober and 

natural manner of the new statements is surprising. 

The statements of the physicists and psychologists are based on their results which 

originate from realms invisible to us: from the micro world of elementary particles, from 

the unfathomable depth of psychical processes, to which also dreams and particularly 

core dreams belong. 

And the painters: to use just one criterium: their statements are an unquestionable 

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response to the experienced transparency of colour and form and to the flashlike 

appearance of their origin. 

And the poets: their statements occur in factual, declaring sentences which are key 

sentences to them, whose veracity and binding character do not allow any doubt, not 

even where th ey appear, due to their superficially mysterious character, as pure and 

unproved assertions to some people. 

All these statements are irradiating a genuine glow that excludes any objection: they 

bear the sign of the sober truth. 

Whoever has the courage or shares the grace to achieve the openness necessary to 

perceive the invisible, will at first become aware of the at-once and then also of the 

invisible origin. 

But this requires an inner attitude which can disregard oneself; which is capable of 

unconditional trust and opening; which is unintentional without being passive but which 

is unstrained and of an overwakeful brightness. The apersonal can only be perceived by 

an apersonal, egofree human. This is, by the way, not only an Indian or East-Asian 

wisdom but also a Christian: it is a universal basic condition and necessity of 

humankind. Whoever complies to them, experi ences a strengthening of his vitality and 

an improvement of extensive capability of love, which is presently more than ever 

necessary in our threatened world dissipating the human; but this need not particularly 

be emphasized. 

The force, streaming to everybody from the opened-up invisibility of the origin, and 

ensuring a coming true, has so much of a bearing and securing character, that 

everybody participating in it, is sure of the whole and knows to be “in the order”: “in 

God's hand” as biblical wisdom paraphrased it for the patriarchical and personally 

accentuated faculty of imagination. Who perceived the invisible origin, has been 

perceived by the whole. He found back to the sources or up to them. 

The Open Possibilities 

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As concluding remarks, we will be content to understand the justified fear of those who 

timidly, discouraged and de nyingly refuse to accept consciously what (a trump for 

them!) is not provable, but is evident from the cited statements and examples, if they 

only would judge without prejudice. Just this resistance is symptomatic and can be 

documented to-day in all pla ces and in the most different forms. The impending 

anarchism, the hybrid fanaticism of technical progress, which is directed not only 

against man and nature, but also against the impact of the denied invisible, i.e. the 

spiritual, are examples for the fear of those who sense unconsciously t hat their one- 

sided and exclusively rational attitude is of no long-term durability. Rationalism, having 

reached an impasse, fights desperately wi th all thinkable means against the emergence 

of the new consciousness. It hopes to save itself with this. If it were not successful, 

what we assume, it will try to tear everything into its own ruin. We have already seen 

examples for this. Attempts on this behalf do already exist. These are the open 

posibilities for the final loss of the openness: of our spiritual origin. Holderlin, when he 

coined the unique wording of the “innerness of the world” (Innerheit der Welt) in one of 

his later poems, “Aussicht” (Outlook) pre-suspected with his statement this possibility: 

The worldís innerness is often clouded, closed, 

The human mind is full of doubts, discouraged . . . [65] 

(Oft scheint die Innerheit der Welt umw^lkt, verschlossen, 

Des Menschen Sinn von Zweifeln voll, verdrossen. . . ) 

Brutal selfishness, to mention just one example, has already led to the contamination of 

the most important elements of life, of air, water and soil. Generations to come will 

curse us downward for this evolution. We cannot fight these devastating forces (and 

come to grips with them). If we assume the fight against this type of directed evolution, 

we will only reinforce it. But we can attempt to act retarding and hence impeding. It is 

tragical enough that the majority of humankind had always to be taught only by 

disasters. These appear to have been even more horrible than the last two wars, since 

they resulted in less than they should have done. Seen in this way, the activity of those 

who try not only to keep a position already lost with all means of power, but to extend 

it, is a tragical challenge, necessary to help the new consciuosness to emerge, which is 

probably the only guarantor for the survival of humankind. 

Humankind will have to sa crifice enormously over the next three decades: premature 

death of millions and millions. Let us hope that the atmosphere of our planet earth will 

not be poisoned for milennia to come by this contamination and killing. This depends to 

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a larg e extent on the minimal percentage of relevant people being able to realize the 

integral consciousness, which is acting upon the fate of humankind from the invisible, in 

such a way that it emerges. The quoted sentences show at least, that it starts to 

manifest. Each of the presently living, who proves himself thanks to inner preparation 

and through the secondary execution of the pristine preliminary decision, is obliged to 

strengthen by his life the forces preserving us. That there could be several capable of 

doing this would be guarantee for the survival of humankind over the deciding next 

three decades. 

The perception of the origin, the fact alone that it is possible, should draw our attention 

to the effectiveness of the constellating invisible and liberate us from the illusion that 

the events are mainly controlled by man. The unique statement of the agraphon 

encourages us; the recognition of the at-once (based on the indicated structure of the 

core dreams and of the nuclear processes) can cause the origin to become evident in 

us; the involutionary influence of the universal consciousness, located in the invisible, 

on the emergence of our new integral (or aperspectival) consciousness may be read 

from the cited key sentences, that have been formulated over the past two generations 

in West and East. 

All three facts: the agraphon and its testimony by the disciples, the structure of the core 

dreams and of the nuclear processes and the termination of the three-pase character by 

including the future into the presence, which are all expressed in the key sentences, 

they are building blocks for our refusal to join in the choir of decline, of being infected 

by it. In view of the horrible events occurring all over the world we must not fall into 

depression and despair. That would strengthen only the position of the 

representatatives of decline which can only be held in an atmosphere of despair. Every 

bit of despair or depression helps the always present negative powers. Their incapability 

to destroy leads them into frenzied rage. But calmness is stronger than loud noises. The 

soft, the water already Laotsu knew it-is stronger than the hard, the stone. The human 

with inner security is stronger than he who seeks intentionally material security-even if 

he is killed by the security seeker. Any genuine strength is superior to any form of 

power. The apparent fear and concern of the others-in most cases it degenerates into a 

flight ahead, into progress or belief in progress-whose reactions I tried to sketch when I 

reported about the obstructions, they are our strength. But we should not “utilize” this 

fear, as they would do it. We should rather realize or at least become aware that, let's 

say spiritual forces-particularly those of charity nad love-at first roused in humankind by 

Jesus Christ, atttempt to protect us. Some of the above statements are a striking 

example also for this. Perhaps it is possible to accept these statements as facts 

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confirming us. These are the open possibilities to gain the openness, to participate 

consciously in the invisible origin. 

We live, who wouldn't know that, in decisive years. This is a factual statement. We have 

a force at our side and within us which measures up to the decline, to the closed 

“innerness of the world.” I have named it, pointed at its effectiveness. It would be 

indeed good, we would take it to heart. 

(translated by THEO RÖTTGERS) 

This treatise titled “Der unsichtbare Ursprung” was first published by Walter Verlag, 

Olten in 1970. It is now available in “Vorlesungen und Reden zu Ursprung und 

Gegenwart,” Jean Gebser Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 5, 2, Novalis Verlag, Schaffhausen, 

21999. 

Notes 

[1] 

 See Pascual Jordan, Der Naturwissenschaftler vor der religiosen Frage, Abbruch 

einer Mauer. Oldenburg 1963, p. 259ff. C.F. von Weizs?cker, Die Tragweite der 

Wissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1964, Bd. I, S.159ff 

[2] 

 See Jean Gebser, In der Bew?hrung, Francke, Bern/München, 1962. 

Gesamtausgabe, Novalis, Bd. V/1 21999 

[3] 

 See Carl Friedrich von Weizs?cker, Die Geschichte der Natur, Hirzel, Z¸rich, 1948, 

p.117 

[4] 

 See Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Vol. XL, Chapter 6; and Isidor von Sevilla, De 

Summo Bono,Vol. I 

[5] 

 See Jean Gebser, The Ever-present Origin, Gesamtausgabe Vol. II, p. 125ff 

[6] 

 See Jean Gebser, l.c. p. 125 

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[7] 

 See Jean Gebser, l.c.Vol. IV, p.200 

[8] 

 Laotsu, Tao te Ching, German translation from the Chinese and commented by 

Richard Wilhelm, Jena 1921 

[9] 

 Dschuang Dsi. German translation from the Chinese and commented by Richard 

Wilhelm, Jena 1940 

[10] 

 The statement about the Tao is not contained in Richard Wilhelmís translation of 

Speechs and Parables of Tschuang-Tse, Leipzig 1922 

[11] 

 Die versprengten Worte Jesu , edited by Benedikt Godeschalk, Munich 1922 

[12] 

 Unbekannte Worte Jesu, collected and with an introduction by Alfred Rosenberg, 

Munich-Planegg, 1954 

[13] 

 Thanks to Reverend Wolfgang Hammer, St. Moritz for the hints to these 

statements in the New Testament. 

[14] 

 According to a translation of Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, Zollikon, 1950 

[15] 

 See e.g. Gesamtausgabe Vol. II, p. 83ff, Vol. III, p.424ff 

[16] 

 Letter is unpublished manuscript. 

[17] 

 See also Jean Gebser, Asien l?chelt anders, Gesamtausgabe Vol VI, p 156ff 

[18] 

 C.G.Jung, in: Eranos XX (1951) 

[19] 

 I have often dealt with the conception of freedom of time (associated with the ego- 

freedom) according to its enormous importance since it expresses the consciously 

realized timelessness and temporality. See e.g. Jean Gebser, The Ever-present Origin, 

Vol II, pp. 200 and 278. 

[20] 

 Werner Heisenberg, Atomphysik und Kausalgesetz in: Die neue Weltschau, 

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Stuttgart 1953 

[21] 

 see Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Die Zeit, Munich, 1954 

[22] 

 see Gebhard Frei, Probleme der Parapsychologie, Munich 1969 

[23] 

 J. W. von Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, part 3, book 11 

[24] 

 Aldous Huxley, Time Mu st Have a Stop, New York and London, 1944; and Zeit 

mufl enden, 

Z¸rich 1950 

< DIV id=edn25 style="mso-element: endnote"> 

[25] 

 see p24 and note 59 below 

[26] 

 Robert Jungk: Die Zukunft hat schon begonnen Bern 1952 

[27] 

 see for this and next page explanation on pp. 17 and 20 

[28] 

 Pascual Jordan: Die Physik und das Geheimnis des organischen Lebens, 

Braunschweig, 61948; Jean Gebser The Ever-Present Origin 

[29] 

 Pascual Jordan Verdr?ngung und Komplementaritat, Hamburg-Bergedorf, 1947, p. 

23ff 

[30] 

 Pascual Jordan: New Trends in Physics, in: Proceedings of Four Conferences of 

Parapsychology Studies 

 New York, 1957, p. 16 

[31] 

 C. G. Jung. Synchronizitat als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhenge. 

 In: Collected 

Works 

 Vol. 8 (1971) 

[32] 

 see notes in Jean Gebser The Ever-present Origin 

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[33] 

 Examples of anticipatory dreams may be found in C. G. Jung: Wirklichkeit der Seele 

(Reality of the Soul) 

Zürich 41969, p. 59ff 

[34 ] 

 See Jean Gebser Ever-Present Origin Chapter XX 

[35] 

 See Jean Gebser, l.c. Vol. II, Chapter I 

[36] 

 About “samadhi” (the Buddhist-Hinduist form of the “unio mystica”) and “satori” 

(the Zen-Buddhist form of “illumination”) see Jean Gebser, Asien lichelt anders, 

Gesamtausgabe 

 Vol. VI, p. 159 and 164f. 

[37] 

 Cited after the translation of Paul C. Berger in his article on Marcel Proust i n: “Das 

Buch” 

 Vol. III, No. 2, Mainz 1951 

[38] 

 See Robert Musil, Der Ma nn ohne Eigenschaften, Hamburg, 1952, p. 1636 

[39] 

 see Werner Heisenberg, Atomphysik und Kausalgesetz, in Werner Heisenberg: Das 

Naturbild der heutigen Physik, 

Hamburg, 1955 

[40] 

 A.S. Eddington, Space, Time and Gravitation, Cambridge University Press, 1935, p. 

51 

[41] 

 cited after Liliane Guerry, Cézanne et l' expression de l'espace, Paris, 1950, p.180 

[42] 

 Pablo Picasso, Wort und Bekenntnis, Berlin, 1957. I have shown some pictures of 

Picasso's, distinguished by their transparency, in The Ever-Present Origin, Vol. II, p.3 36f 

[43] 

 Pablo Picasso, l.c p.19 

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[44] 

 See Reden und Gleichnisse des Tschuang Tse, Martin Buber, Leipzig 1922 

[45] 

 Pablo Picasso, l.c., p.29 

[46] 

 see Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin, Vol.II, p. 332 

[47] 

 see Pablo Picasso, l.c. p.30 

[48] 

 see G.R.Heyer, Vom Kraftfeld der Seele, l.c.1949, p. 85 

[49] 

 cited after Werner Hofmann, Paul Klee, M¸nchen 1950, p.87 

[50] 

 see Paul Klee, Bern 1945, p. 47 

[51] 

 see Paul Klee, l.c. P. 43 

[52] 

 cited after Ottomar Dominick, Die schopferischen Krofte in der abstrakten Malerei, 

Bergen, 1947, p. 14 

[53] 

 cited after Georg Schmidt, Paul Klee in “National-Zeitung,” Basel, No. 89, Feb. 23, 

1941 

[54] 

 Jorge Guillén, Cántico, Buenos Aires, 1950, p. 159 

[55] 

 see G. R. Heyerís unpublished works, l.c (Note 16), following his note about those 

dreams which I called core dreams 

[56] 

 T. S. Eliot, The Family Reunion, New York, 1939, p. 98 

[57] 

 L. S. Senghor in his Frankfurt speach (1963?); see also Gisela Bonn, Botschaft aus 

Afrika, in: Christ und Welt, 16, 14, Stuttgart, April 5, 1963, p. 17 

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Jean Gebser 

[58] 

 see T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, London, 1943, p.11 and Four Quartets, London, 1944, 

p. 9 

[59] 

 see Stéphane Mallarmé, Œvres complètes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, 1945, 

p.71 in the poem ´ Tombeau ª 

[60] 

 see Lou Albert-Lasard, Wege mit Rilke, Frankfurt/Munich, 1952, p. 162 

[61] 

 see e.g. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, (1914), cited from Centenary Edition Vol. 

18, (1990), register 

[62] 

 Description of this case see in Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin l.c. 21966, 

Note 4 on p. 42 

[63] 

 see G. Picht, Mut zur Utopie, Munich, 1969, p. 142 

[64] 

 Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Cent. Edition, Vol. 21, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 

Pondicherry, 81988, p.865 

[65] 

 see Holderlin, S?mtliche Werke, ed. F. Beiflner, Leipzig, p.436 

[Edited by Sean Saiter, The Journal of Conscious Evolution, Feb 2005, (html)] 

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