Second Edition 9/2026
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I recently submitted an essay based on this paper to the Essentia Foundation. Having not received even an acknowledgment that they received it, I withdrew it and will publish it here. Rejected Essentia Essay 2026: A Pragmatic Model of Reality.
Brief
This paper describes the Pragmatic Model of Reality, which is a metacausal function, process and relationship model that is implied by current science and lessons learned from Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC). The point of view described by the model is Dualism expressed through Idealism based on Dual-aspect Monism. It can be generalized as “Spirit having a human experience.” The “so what” significance of the model is explained as the Seeker’s Way. Here, “Seekers” are defined as people who realize they are more than their physical body and who have embarked on a personal journey to understand their actual nature.
Content
Introduction to the model
The Seeker’s Way
Concepts in reality
Layer 1 Principles in reality
Layer 2 Attention in mind
Layer 3 Intention in mind
Layer 4 Comprehension in acquisition of understanding
Introduction
Introduction
The Pragmatic Model of Reality (1) is a function, process and relationship model designed as a tool for testing current understanding about the nature of self and Psi phenomena, especially Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC). (2). In the model, reality is considered a thoughtform functioning as a field (Psi Field) of propagation for life fields and their expressions. The initial state or first cause for the model is curiosity.
Curiosity was selected for the initial state of the Pragmatic Model because it appears to be a universal characteristic of life. It focuses our attention with the intention to understand. As an Organizing Principle, (3) curiosity is defined as two states:
First Cause – The initial state of reality is modeled as Curiosity in the Pragmatic Model of Reality. The expression of curiosity produces the potential for understanding.
Life Field – Curiosity is the source of attention which motivates the formation of expression and perception based on worldview.
Understanding is modeled as the expected final state of reality. The complementary extremes of curiosity and understanding imply a mechanism to experience aspects of reality and facilitate acquisition of understanding from those experiences that will satisfy curiosity. Naturally occurring or implicate organizing principles (3) emerge from that mechanism.
This is not a “god” model. The source of curiosity is not identified. Instead, undifferentiated impersonal curiosity is stipulated to be the most fundamental characteristic of reality. It is used as a first cause influence to bound the model. The idea of initial curiosity leading to understanding as a fundamental characteristic of reality is present in the model to establish a context for expression and perception as a product of a life field’s mentation.
The set of functions necessary to acquire understanding are modeled as life fields and their expressions. Life fields are related to parent life fields in a many-to-one nested hierarchy that increases in complexity and quantity from the initial expression of curiosity toward greater understanding.
Referring to the Creative Process Diagram below, life fields are modeled as a fractal in the sense that all life fields have the same functions, processes and relationships. Each has the characteristic of mentation in the form of sensed information is considered as it relates to the life field’s worldview. The result of that process is the life field’s preconscious expression which represents what it thinks of the sensed information. The life field’s conscious perception is derived from its preconscious expression. An intention feedback influence is returned to the consideration stage as an expression moderator based on what the life field wants to express.
Life fields share the same characteristics, the degree to which those are expressed is a function of mechanical ability. For instance, while associated with the physical frame of reference, a single-celled life form is not equipped to play a fiddle. They are also constrained by worldview. For instance, a skin cell has a different frame of reference than a dog.
The Seeker’s Way
These well-considered sources have been influential in my quest for discerning intelligence and greater lucidity:
- The Emerald Tablet – Attributed to Hermes the Egyptian. Teaches The Creative Process.(4)
- The Katha Upanishad – Indus Valley Sanskrit story about a conversation between the God of death and a Seeker. Teaches about duality and discernment.(5)
- John 14 of the Christian Bible. Teaches the three aspects of a teacher. (6)
- Hermetic Tarot – 22 keys of the Major Arcana. Teaches the Seeker’s Way. (4)
- Monroe Instituter – Teaches contemplation. (7)
- Contemporary schools such as Silva Method – Teaches contemplation and clairvoyance.(8)
- Organized Spiritualism – Teaches meditation, healing intention, mediumship and clairvoyance.(9)
- Hypothesis of Formative Causation (aka Morphic Resonance) – Teaches about life fields and morphogenic mind.(10) (11)
- Systems of thought teaching personality styles – Teaches about temperament.(12) (13)
- First Sight Theory – Provides insight into the development of expression and perception.(14) (15) (16)
- Instrumental TransCommunication – Audio (aka Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP) and visual forms of instrument aided transcommunication (ITC) have shown the way toward understanding the etheric-physical interface and Psi functioning.(17) (2)
Comment: Michelangelo said of his sculptures, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there; I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” I remember the saying as “The hole was always there; I just removed the dirt.” In that sense, I did not invent the Pragmatic Model of Reality. It is evident in the nature of consciousness and Psi.
I summarize the Seeker’s Way (18) as the three questions:
- What is our nature? – Are we our human body? If not, what is the relationship between our spirit self and our human?
- What is the nature of reality? – Is there a difference between physical space and mental space? If so what is the relationship between mental space and physical space? Is mental space purposeful? If so what is its purpose?
- What is our relationship with reality? – If we are not our human, are we just thought? Is being a person as a spirit self, entangled with a human, purposeful? What is the relationship between being discarnate and incarnate? How do we individually share a collective venue for learning?
Conceptual Space
Perspective
This section describes the relationship between conceptual space and physical space. Note that the model is designed and explained from a conceptual point of view. Some of the terms used here are intended to guide your thinking toward the perspective that the arrow of creation flows from the concept of curiosity toward the present complexity intended to satisfy that curiosity with understanding.
Metacausal instead of Metaphysical
From Etheric Studies Glossary of Terms: (19)
Metacausal: Consciousness and Psi studies require a more generic variation of metaphysics that is open to the possibility of a nonphysical aspect of reality. Metacausal theories should imply a cosmological model that suggests answers to the three Seeker’s Questions: What is the nature of reality, 2.) what is our nature, 3.) what is our relationship with reality? This term is not widely used.
Metaphysics: A mostly philosophical examination of the nature of reality. For seekers, this is an outdated, mostly Physicalist philosophy. The term is more often used in reference to the physical universe and Physicalism.
Consciousness and Psi Studies instead of Parapsychology
Physicalists assume that our mind is an emergent quality of our biological brain. Psychologists are trained to study human behavior rather than consciousness behavior. People referring to anything related to “psychology” predictably assume human mind and human behavior. To avoid this psychology “paradigm lock” on Physicalism, the study of mind-related phenomena is referred to here as “Consciousness and Psi Studies.”
Preconscious rather than Unconscious
In the Pragmatic Model, the Expression output of preconscious mind is treated as a precursor to conscious Perception. Because people do occasionally directly access some aspects of the unconscious mind, it is important to refer to the preconscious mind as mostly unconscious. However, referring to the complex of functional areas and processes that develop expression as “preconscious mind” is more descriptive and eliminates the need for the “mostly” qualifier.
Physical verses nonphysical terminology
The Pragmatic Model of Reality is a function, process and relationship model intended to answer the three Seeker’s questions that ask “What is my nature? What is the nature of reality? What is my relationship with reality?” These are metacausal questions that are best answered in terms of concepts and nonphysical space rather than in terms of physical principles.
Purpose
When modeling the “Why” of our existence, especially the reason we are a person entangled with a human avatar must be considered. The most commonly cited purpose is to gain understanding about how the organizing principles manifest in the physical frame of reference (aka venue for experience). According to this model, the prime imperative of a life field is to return understanding to the collective. This collective understanding shares characteristics with the “Nature’s Habit”-like database as described in Rupert Sheldrake’s Hypothesis of Formative Causation (10) (11)
Part 1
Concepts Space
Perspective
This part describes the relationship between conceptual space and Physical space. The intention and a point of view that helps to clarify the cosmology.
Metacausal instead of Metaphysical
Most people have a Physicalists point of view and assume the physical universe is all there is. It has been my experience that Physicalists assume metaphysics is only about some version of a physical model of reality. For this reason, “Metacausal” is used here instead of “Metaphysical” when describing reality.
Consciousness and Psi Studies instead of Parapsychology
Physicalists assume that our mind is an emergent quality of our biological brain. Psychologists are trained to study human behavior rather than consciousness behavior. People referring to anything “psychology” predictably assume human mind and human behavior. To avoid this psychology “paradigm lock” on Physicalism, the study of mind-related phenomena is referred to here as “Consciousness and Psi Studies.”
Preconscious rather than Unconscious
The Implicit Cosmology models the Expression output of mostly unconscious mind as a precursor to conscious Perception. Because people do occasionally directly access some aspects of the unconscious mind, it is important to refer to the unconscious mind as “mostly unconscious mind.” However, referring to the complex of functional areas and processes that develop expression as “preconscious mind” is more descriptive and eliminates the need for the “mostly” qualifier.
Physical verses nonphysical terminology
The Pragmatic Model of Reality is a function, process and relationship model intended to answer the three Seeker’s questions that ask “What is our nature? What is the nature of reality? What is our relationship with reality?” These are metacausal questions that seem likely to be answered in terms of concepts and nonphysical space rather than in terms of physical principles.
Many words intended to describe our physical experience are not appropriate for Consciousness and Psi Studies. The Comparing Physical and Nonphysical Terms Table provides a few examples of physical to nonphysical equivalencies.
Two Mind Model of a Person
I have found it useful to model a person as an immortal self entangled with a human in an avatar relationship. As shown in the Life Field Anatomy Diagram below, the Immortal Personality represents the attractor that binds the functional areas of the Primary life field. It is modeled as Mind 1.
The Morphogenic Mind represents the host or avatar as a biological organism (Mind 2). An assumption of the cosmology is that the biological organism has an independent existence, but that its expression-perception functions are shared with the symbiotic Mind 1 during entanglement.
By thinking of a person as a symbiotic life field sharing the formation of expression and perception with a second life field functioning as an avatar, it becomes easier to realize the extent of influence human instincts have on behavior.
Based on observation, the influence of the avatar’s (Mind 2) worldview and instincts dominate the Attention Complex unless overridden by the mindful expression of Mind 1. If true, that would seem to indicate that people are first instinctual and then mindful.
Purpose
When considering the “Why” of our entanglement with our human avatar, the most commonly cited purpose is to gain understanding about how the organizing principles manifest in the physical venue. According to this model, the prime imperative of a life field is to return understanding to the collective. This collective understanding shares characteristics with the “Nature’s Habit” database described in Sheldrake’s Hypothesis of Formative Causation (aka Morphic Resonance)
Layer 1: Principles
Layer 1 – Principles represent the conceptual, most fundamental elements of the Pragmatic Model of Reality. Think of this aspect of reality as a venue for experiences (frame of reference) directed toward gaining understanding about the nature of reality. A function, process and relationship model of reality is concerned with the Organizing Principles of Reality. (3) and the medium that propagates their influence. Reality is treated as a dimensionless singularity that is conceptually infinitely large. Everything is here and here is limitless in scope.
In this view, the most fundamental characteristic of life is modeled as curiosity. With that conjecture, the initial state of reality (First Cause), is the expression of curiosity about itself. In the conceptual space of the etheric, the expression of curiosity implies the potential for understanding as a final state of reality and a set of functions, processes and relationships that enable acquisition of understanding. The mechanism for acquiring understanding is modeled as life fields. Reality is modeled here as consisting of life fields and their expressions.
Implicate Order
While the Organizing Principles of reality are conceptual, they can be thought of in a similar way that physical principles are thought to naturally emerge in the formation of physical space. The “implicate” principles that became evident during the design of the Pragmatic Model of Reality are listed above.
In a similar way, David Bohm argued in his theory of Implicate Order (20) that organizing principles naturally emerged as part of the rapid expansion of a singularity believed to have formed the physical universe. In conceptual space, a question implies an answer and a means with which to acquire that answer. In the same sense I think intended by Bohm, an answer (understanding) and means with which to gain the answer (experiencing agent, aka life filed) are implicate aspects of reality.
Life Field
The Functional Areas of a Life Field Diagram shown below illustrates the major functions, processes and relationships of a life field. All functional areas and information flow are nonphysical (in etheric space, Psi Fields). The Personality functional area is modeled in Layer 1 with Principles because it is that part of a life field that is expressed as an experiencing thoughtform. The mind and awareness functional areas are emergent qualities of Personality.
Personality
The Personality function represents our interface with our parent life field. In terms of life fields as fractals in reality with the reality field as the top fractal, Personalities are the core attractors for life field fractals. That is, all of our mind exists to support our etheric personality as defined by its inherited purpose and prior understanding.
Core Intelligence – Our personality represents the organizing function of our life field. It represents our immortal aspect and our actual “I am this.”
Purpose – We inherit our purpose to gain understanding about specific aspects of our parent life field’s reality. In that sense, Personality is the Observer because it is our life field’s functional area that receives the understanding we glean from experience.
Prior Understanding – We also inherit prior understanding as a subset of our parent’s previously acquired understanding. The degree to which we are consciously aware of prior understanding is a function of perceptual agreement (see below) dictated by our worldview.
Collective – Our parent life field presumably expressed multiple child life fields, each with a “targeted” purpose to acquire specific understanding. In that way, our sibling life fields represent a collective with which we share similar purpose. Communication with our collective is by way of the Sensed Information signal. In that way, what we receive from our collective is filtered by our worldview.
Layer 2: Attention
Life Field – Preconscious Mind
Part of the Implicate Mind
Think of our unconscious mind as set of functions that respond to sensed information (environmental Psi) to develop our mental preconscious outward expression signal. It represents our sentience. It can be considered “preconscious” in the sense that our conscious perception is derived from our mind’s outward expression.
This functional area of our mind has been traditionally considered here as mostly unconscious because there are circumstances such as during deep trance in which we may become consciously aware of sensed information as it is colored by our worldview. Such information access is considered lucid perception.
The main functional areas of our preconscious mind are:
Worldview – Think of our worldview as a mental database containing inherited understanding and purpose as shared information from our collective and memory. If we are entangled with a human avatar as a person, (incarnate) our worldview also contains human instincts and cultural teaching. Our worldview functions as the standard of truth.
Sensed Information – Our life field receives Psi information from other life fields as streaming thoughtforms. If we are incarnate, our sensed information includes information from our avatar’s bodily senses.
Sensed information is a streaming Psi signal. For instance, the audio signal from our ears is continuous. Our preconscious mind tends to ignore routine streaming signals.
As shown in the Life Field Diagram below, an important characteristic of our preconscious mind can be thought of as our Attention Limiter. In theory, all life fields express a continuous stream of information characterized here as a story about what is being sensed. Our mind is immersed in this information field, and our Attention Limiter filters all but relevant information.
An analog for this would be the way information is addressed to a particular device on the Internet. Each packet of information sent onto the Internet by a device includes the digital address of the intended receiving device. All devices on the Internet have a unique address. Only the device with a matching address will receive the message.
Perceptual Loop – Sensed information is compared with the content of our worldview before being passed on as our expression signal. That process is illustrated in the Life Field Diagram as the Perceptual Loop. Information sensed from the environment (body senses, other minds) is considered a streaming process resulting in one of three outcomes:
Reject – If the process does not recognize the sensed information, the information will likely be ignored.
Yes – If the Perceptual Loop produces an “Agree with worldview” result, the sensed information is unchanged and becomes the expression signal.
Maybe – If the Loop produces a “Maybe” result, the sensed information will likely be modified to better agree with worldview and then it becomes the expression signal.
Intention Test – The Perceptual Loop includes a subroutine in which we visualize what we intend to experience based on our worldview. That visualization becomes a trial expression signal back to the Perceptual Loop as a “is this what the sensed information means?”
This is considered a very rapid, iterative process of negotiation to see if agreement with Worldview is possible. If a version passes the Perceptual Loop test, it becomes the mind’s outward expression
Expression – The Psi Expression signal represents what our preconscious mind thinks is true about sensed information. It is psychokinetic in the sense that it represents our intention for what we think is true, to be true. Think of this output as our expression of Intended Order. Again, it is a streaming signal.
Visualize our expression as streaming consecutive thoughtforms representing intended concepts. Our audience is other life fields. Remember that they have an Attention Limiter function as well. That means they will become aware of our expression signal depending on the strength of the link of rapport. The degree to which we want the concepts to be experienced by other life fields depends on our intention.
Storyteller
A useful way to think of our preconscious mind is to characterize it as our mental storyteller. (21) Our conscious self continuously experiences mental chatter about what we are doing, thinking and experiencing. If our worldview includes wrong information, our story will be misleading. For instance, if we are taught in school to fear red flowers, then our story will guide us to be consciously fearful of red flowers. Part of a person’s perceptual maturing involves learning to modify such irrational views.
Some forms of meditation teach techniques for quieting our mental chatter (aka storytelling) while others teach to guide it. Since the chatter is always explaining what our preconscious mind thinks of sensed information, the Seeker’s Way is to learn to better align our worldview with the actual nature of reality rather than subduing the chatter. In that way, our storyteller is thought to become more informative and less misleading. That is why we describe fulfilling the objective of the Seeker’s Way as increasing our lucidity.
Perceptual Agreement
Worldview is referred to here as “Judge” because of the way it decides what is true. It is also referred to as “Navigator” because of the Organizing Principle of Perceptual Agreement:
Personality must be in perceptual agreement with the aspect of reality with which it will associate.
Since the Judge tends to ignore aspects of reality it does not recognize, it is more difficult for us to experience unfamiliar aspects. Consider the idea of frames of reference. Frames of reference (22) are thoughtforms that represent a venue for experience. They are based on worldview (habit) and intended outcome. A venue field may be as simple as a situation imagined by a person to explore how it might be to drive a new car or to roller skate.
A frame of reference may also be imagined by cooperating life fields, possibly representing many different collectives. The physical universe is considered a frame of reference and is an aspect or subset of the reality field. The objective nature of the venue would be the result of shared elements of the collective’s worldview.
Following the Principle of Perceptual Agreement, a frame of reference should be considered an evolving local reality. In the beginning, the creating personalities would necessarily need to begin with the original expression of intention limited by the scope of their worldview. They are only able to express what they can imagine.
That original expression of intention would begin a process of evolution from what is first imagined toward complexity matured enough to support the desired experiences. This evolution would be guided by that intended purpose.
Unless the venue is adopted from a previous venue, avatar life fields would likely have to evolve as the venue evolved. In other words, “Nature’s Habit” (11) cannot exist without evolution; however, that evolution would be guided by previous understanding evolving from earlier results of the creative process. (23) Refer to the Creative Process Diagram below.
In the same sense, we cannot experience a venue for which we have no references in our worldview. The Seeker’s Way teaches suspended judgement. Habitually practicing suspended judgement teaches our unconscious mind to be more open to unexpected experiences.
Layer 3: Intention
Life Field – Conscious Mind
Part of the Implicate Mind
While Personality is the purposeful observer and immortal core of the life field and the Preconscious Mind is the judge and navigator, Conscious Mind is our experiencer aspect. It develops our consciousness.
Think of our conscious mind as the way our life field becomes aware of reality and the part of our mind that develops intention.
Conscious Mind interacts with reality by tapping into the preconscious mind’s expression signal. That is, environmental information sensed by our preconscious mind is moderated to better agree with our worldview and then sent to reality as a “This is what I think is true” streaming thoughtform. When we experience reality, it is that thoughtform we sense.
Comment: Our perception is always moderated by our worldview whether we are incarnate or discarnate. However, it is the expression output of our preconscious mind—which is modified by our worldview—that is streamed into the etheric as thoughtforms. As illustrated in the Creative Process Diagram below, our conscious self can only modify our expression by incrementally influencing our worldview.
Our expression adds to the collective cultural frame of reference or paradigm. In that way, we can unconsciously reinforce conspiracy theories or other false narratives. Our discernment discussed in Layer 4 is able to change such narratives, depending on our social influence. That is one reason it is so important for us to be participants in social discussions rather than just observers.
Mental Review Function
The Mental Review function of conscious perception asks the question, “Is this what I wanted to express?” And, “How much do I intend it?”
Lucidity Feedback Test – Our awareness function includes a test that asks, “Is this what I intended?” The outputs of that test are:
Yes: The Intention Feedback signal is neutral.
No: The feedback signal includes modifying information that has the potential to modify our worldview. Experience has taught Seekers that changes in our worldview tend to require many “corrections.”
Degree of Intention Modifier – In effect, the Intention Feedback signal is a conscious expression of our intention for the currently perceived expression.
The influence of our intention on our worldview depends a great deal on the intensity of the feedback signal. Say for instance that our unconscious perception forming process produces a fearful response to darkness. If the person is consciously in agreement with that fear, the feedback will tend to reinforce the expression output and ensure the next reaction to darkness will also be fearful. If the conscious agreement is strong, it is possible the fear response will become debilitating.
Seekers learn that their human is afraid of the dark but that their spirit self is not. Considering that their objective is to better align their perception with reality, their conscious intention bias will be toward an alert but fearless feedback to their preconscious mind.
As above, so below – It is interesting to speculate that the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence (4) is realized in the relationship between conscious perception and feedback to the preconscious aspect of our mind. The principle reads:
As above, so below; as below, so above.
Also, from Line 1 of the 6,000-years-old Emerald Tablet attributed to Hermes of Egypt:
It is true and no lie, certain and to be depended upon, that which is above is as that which is below; and that which is below is as that which is above, for the performance of the one truly great work.
If we say that the preconscious mind is “above” and the conscious mind which is associated with the physical is “below,” it can be seen that our expression becomes our perception which becomes our intention which moderates expression.
Creative Process
For a metacausal model to make sense, it is necessary to have a mechanism by which reality can be intentionally expressed as intended thoughtforms. From the Strict Dualism perspective, it is also necessary to have a way to assign the characteristics of physicality to the way some thoughtforms are perceived.
That mechanism is identified in the Pragmatic Model of Reality as the Creative Process which is essentially the same mechanism taught by many if not all of the ancient wisdom schools. It is defined here as:
Changes in reality are expressed via personality’s attention on an imagined outcome with the intention to make it so.
Note that what can be “imagined” is limited by the life field’s worldview. And that is the purpose of the ancient lessons. In this context, think of lucidity as a measure of how well a person can sense beyond the conscious-preconscious interface to experience reality more as it is rather than as it is supported by the person’s worldview.preconscious interface to experience reality more as it is rather than as it is supported by the person’s worldview.
Layer 4: Comprehension
The first three layers of the Anatomy of Consciousness Diagram are concerned with the organization of reality, the organization of a life field and the development of consciousness. Level 4 is concerned with the application of consciousness toward the development of understanding.
Temperament
Just as we are born left or right-handed, we are born with basic personality traits that tend to bias the way we integrate new experiences into our worldview. Traits are referred to here as “temperaments.” Learning to understand the mostly unconscious influence of our temperament is an important step toward learning to manage our preconscious thought processes. While our temperament’s influence on how we think is mostly unconscious, understanding the basic functions of thought and limits of conscious control can help us manage our choices.
The four-temperament model I have adapted for this discussion is inspired by the Driver, Analytical, Amiable, Expressive model proposed by David Merrill and Roger Reid. (12) Note that I have assigned names and meanings that better apply to my point:
Leader – People with a Leader temperament attempt to dominate socially and in business. Their choices tend to be guided by human instincts, especially the urge to assure dominance of the personal gene pool. Relates to Merrill and Reid’s Driver temperament.
Conformist – People with a Conformist temperament seek to find protection in numbers. Their choices are instinctual and intended to assure position in the tribe. Relates to Merrill and Reid’s Expressive temperament.
Wayshower – People with a Wayshower temperament understand the need for collective, meaningful progression. Their choices tend to be guided by acquired discerning intellect. They habitually consider the implications of choices. Relates to Merrill and Reid’s Analytical temperament.
Seeker – People with a Seeker temperament respond to the urge to better understand their personal nature. Their choices tend to be guided by acquired discerning intellect as they learn to habitually consider the implications of choices. Relates to Merrill and Reid’s Amiable temperament.
People’s temperament can be described in terms of a primary and secondary trait such as Leader-Seeker.
Temperament Mediated Perception
The Temperament Mediated Perception (TMP) Model Diagramed below was composed to illustrate the way people decide the meaning of their perception. It illustrates the spectrum of mental influences between more spontaneous, instinctual reactions to the environment (left) and more mindful choices (right).
Pleasurable or Meaningful
Following the lead of the Katha Upanishad, (5) the kind of choices people make tells us a lot about whether the immortal personality or human morphogenic mind is driving their decisions:
Pleasurable – People tend to be more comfortable doing things that promote the dominance of their gene pool. Human instincts turn people toward behavior that promotes their stature in the community (more self-centered). Tends toward Leader and Conformist temperaments.
Meaningful – The basic assumption of ancient wisdom schools is that individuals are intended to experience reality as it is and not as it is taught. Choices that lead a person to progress toward that understanding are considered meaningful in that they are made with the intention to gain understanding in preference to having pleasurable experiences that promote the gene pool. This is not to say pleasurable is bad. It is to say that sometimes truly beneficial experiences may not come from the more pleasurable choice.
Note that the Katha Upanishad uses “Preferable” instead of “meaningful;” however “meaningful” seems more relevant to our current culture.
Discerning Intellect – From the Etheric Studies Glossary of Terms: Believe what you wish but understand the implications of what you believe. (19)
Discernment: While worldview informs perception and expression, the conscious intention to align perception and expression with the actual nature of reality is discernment. Suspended judgment helps personality consider experiences without incorporating them into worldview.
Discernment is possibly the most important quality one can intentionally cultivate. The objective is to resist deciding truth (suspended judgement) while purposefully examining the implications of what is being experienced.
Lucidity
In the context of the Seeker’s Way, lucidity refers to a clear and open channel of awareness of our actual nature and nature of the reality we inhabit.
The objective of a person seeking greater lucidity is to align the personal world map represented by Worldview with the actual nature of reality. The expression of intention appears to be the seeker’s only way to influence Worldview, so the prescribed approach is for the seeker to habitually examine assumptions. That is, “what are the implications of this perception or choice and, do they agree with my intention?”
Lucidity Spectrum
The Lucidity Spectrum concept began as an effort to identify why some people experience paranormal phenomena and others do not, or at least not as clearly. As it turns out, the current political environment and conspiracy theories in the USA have provided ample opportunity to examine how people do or do not develop discernment. Virtually all of the analyses I have found point toward fundamental but poorly understood differences in temperament informing sociopolitical choices. See the essay: Studying Psi Phenomena in the Current Political Climate. (24)
The Lucidity Spectrum is intended to illustrate the Seeker’s progression. Comparing spontaneous, instinctual perception on the left with the effects of increasing lucidity on the right is intended to highlight the purpose of mindful living.
Comment: A person does not become lucid. As with understanding, lucidity is an evolving characteristic of our awareness that converges on perception of the actual nature of reality. (13)
Metaphysical and Metacausal
The “motivated by …” part of the model indicates the change of point of view from Physicalism to Dualism a person is expected to experience as the influence of human instincts are balanced with discerning intellect. From the “-isms” perspective, I think of this in the philosophical hierarchy of Dual-aspect Monism as fundamental with Idealism as expression and Dualism as effect.
Enlightenment Threshold
The Enlightenment Threshold on the Lucidity Spectrum represents the change of mind that comes with the relegalization that we are more than our physical body. This is not an event so much as it is a phase change that begins the process of a person consciously questioning if what is perceived is actual. It is at the Enlightenment Threshold that an average person becomes a Seeker.
All relationships in the diagram are relative, and the curve represents a wild guess as to the distribution of people on the spectrum. The great majority of people never consciously reach the realization that what they experience is limited to what they have been taught to experience. However, it seems evident that everyone has at least a sense that they are more than they have been taught. The Enlightenment Threshold represents the likely relationship between a person simply thinking there might be more and doing things to discover what that is.