Woo licences, the law of 3 and 7 in Bourgeault & Gurdjieff, the mystery of getting slapped in the face by an independent variable, Jung's fourness, Pyramids, Pianos, and why numbers are qualities.
Speaking here from the experience of multiple decades of meditation practice, working with Cynthia Bourgeault's concepts and various integrally informed developmental models. both personally, in business and in my coaching practice.
For me, the key here is the notion of Reconciling. What it takes to initially recognize apparent opposites, then hold the paradox in tension without collapsing to either pole. Typically the pattern is first to not even recognize you're holding to one side (that's just the way it is), to then noticing the opposing force but demonizing it, to then holding the two in some kind of (creative) tension. This is tremendously difficult. The act and intention of "just being" in the eye of the storm calls out latent capacities, evokes something deeper/ broader from within or beyond us. Possibly catalyzes an evolutionary/ developmental process, which is now a required response to challenge.
This ability to bear the tension can be supported by State practices (prayer, meditation, ++) and also by recognition that one may be growing up to some broader stage unfolding.
Long story short—I have found Law of Three a profoundly pragmatic support.
When the Latins were a disorganized rabble overshadowed by Etruscan civilization, they sacrificed a cow, divided themselves into three groups and shared the meat in a ritual. Division is combined as a unity. If anyone was attacked, the rest would fight under their temporary leadership.
They called being a member of this community socius and the whole thing societas; this is usually translated as an alliance. The equal groups was called tribus (tribe = a third) and the ritual was distribution (sharing among egalitarian tribes). But socius comes from the o-grade form of the Indo-European root sekw- (as in second, sequel and sign) meaning to follow.
This was a network society, and we now find ourselves as temporary followers of leaders like you on this occasion. The big names on the internet now encourage us to join their tribe or make one of our own. It was only in medieval France that society became a centralized territorial state, like the failed nation-states we live in now, undermined by the digital revolution and lawless money flows.
PS. The icon for three in Chinese also means many.
I think this is my favorite in the series so far. I am similarly grappling with Woo, and I'd like to apply for a license at some point- https://adamkaraoguz.substack.com/p/what-is-the-right-amount-of-woo. Pyramids can be three-sided (Tetrahedron), just not the Great Pyramids. So you can have three that aggregate into the fourth that way.
Thanks Adam. I am not sure I have the authority to grant one, but I like the question in your post. (And thanks also for your last communique which I haven't managed to respond to yet, but will).
Very interesting. I feel called to indulge a little bit.
Eightness: I have no straight lines, hard angles or end points. Fun fact: If you flip me on my side I form a passable infinity. Thus I am all the numbers and beyond number.
Nineness: I am the reflection. Plus one!
One small thing: "To take the Great Pyramid ... threeness (triangles on three sides)" My mind kept skipping over this. There are triangles on four sides in a pyramid are there not? However you still get to seven so your larger ideas still hold.
Overall, while I have an almost primordial attachment to 4 and 7, I agree with 3 being fundamental. Three is the once and future king of numbers.
Thanks Jeff. That’s an interesting mistake I made. And it’s funny in the context of the piece. It seems you can have a pyramid with a square base that has five sides (including base) or a triangular pyramid with four sides (including the triangle base) but you can’t, of course(!) have a square base giving rise to the three sides that comprise the pyramid. Well spotted! I’ll revise the text somehow or add a note later.
I recommend reading John O’Donohue‘s ‘For the Unknown Self’ and also ‘For the Time of Necessary Decision’. You’ll find them in his book, To Bless the Space Between Us. I think you will find, in his language and ideas, what you are looking for.
It’s just that my instinct tells me that you need to read thinkers who use more poetic language to elucidate what you are searching for. John O’Donahue combines philosophy and poetry so fruitfully! If you have not read the book I mentioned, although it’s a ‘dip into’ type of book, the few pages of prose that he wrote before each chapter are not to be overlooked!
From 1000 years ago the gamut of singable notes, was thought of in terms of overlapping hexachords. (It wasn’t until the 18th century when major and minor scales were firmly established as the basis for European music). A hexachord was a six note scale. Do re mi fa sol la. Fourness arises from threeness in this because you have two groups of 3 notes, divided by a semitone, but each group has 2 whole tones, the complete hexachord containing 4 whole tones!
Gnostic Tarot by Lee Irwin has a lot of interesting commentary on the esoteric meaning of numbers (2-10). You might find it complementary to your inquiry
When a person or group needs to decide on a path, there are two ways this can be handled. In the first, which appears more commonly, a proposal arises and is debated pro and con. The proposals are run through serially, and the first good-enough one becomes the path taken. This favors habit -- whatever worked well-enough before is likely to be considered first, likely to be judged well-enough again. In the second way multiple proposals are entertained in parallel; the decision is held open beyond the pro-and-con considerations of any one of them. So, in relation to any one of the proposals, if the path finally taken is in another direction, that's like your third force coming in to disrupt the pro-con duality -- from the perspective of that particular, often more habitual, pro-con conderation.
I am still unsure exactly what Third Force looks like, but I can see what you are saying here. I imagine it does often arise in a situation where neither of two choices is attractive, and perhaps even when none of many choices is attractive (it's still affirming, denying, reconciling). 🙏
In part I'm thinking of Steven Johnson's book on decision theory, Farsighted. Johnson focuses on getting beyond our usual pro-con approach, developing a more diverse and complex mapping of the space of prospects rather than just weighing the obvious suspects. Where Johnson doesn't go, but fits with his stance, is into how mapping uses a different region of the brain than inner speech, the Posterior Parietal Cortex (PPG) across both hemispheres (where as McGilchrist emphasizes, inner speech is largely Broca's and Wernicke's areas of the LH).
EEG studies show the PPG to be "heavily involved in spatial awareness, attention, and decision-making, supporting ... mental navigation and object manipulation". Philosophers from Aristotle on (including Sarah Wilson) have been famously fond of walking, exploring language's elaborations in a context of spatial awareness. Might spatial awareness then, centered through the PPG, enable decisions from the advantage of commanding perspectives of maps of larger scope than language-based rationalities? May this be where your Third Force enters?
Speaking of spatial awareness please check out a more-than-wonderful book by Paul Holman titled Living Space Openness And Freedom Through Spatial Awareness
Thank you so much! My local bookstores can't easily get that, so (despite disgust with Bezos) just bought the Kindle version. But found and ordered a fascinating book locally while seaching, also on topic: The Open Space: Theatre as Opportunity for Living by Roger Grainger.
In Rowson and Pascal's (ed.) Metamodernity, Vervaeke and Mastropeitro's article also brings space in intriguingly, if opaquely. I'm increasingly convinced, to quote Sun Ra, "Space is the place."
Strange how the violence of zero is not considered, it demands a level playing field by remove what exists.
Physics, three body problem = physical reality, three mind problem, when the T mind and T body are separated and colonialists, they need their squares on a round planet, and the hard edges of determination and it’s mean behaviours that can no longer dance, but only destroy for flatness and stillness of library.
Extinction is our confidence, not our wonder, the laws of judgements can no longer illuminate humility with simple math.
I did consider what Zero might say. And by extension, infinity, and the alpha and omega. I can also see the connection between extinction and current events. But it didn't feel right for this post.
I don’t know if studying zero for many years has any merit to conventional wisdom, all I discovered was that colonials are incredibly violent both in words and stiffness, my commiserate fellow was Nora Bateson who could interpret a different dialogue of meaning and uses the incongruous blanket title of polymath’s, which I am ok with while exploring ‘human’ numbers.
As you said, *seven* is mind blowingly complex, considering 3 crystallizes and can not move.
I too wrestled with the Law of Seven. The Law of Three is spiritual way of describing what complexity science calls emergence. But the Law of Seven is about transformation. Here is a link to my application which I call the Transformation Octave. https://justconflict.org/summary/of-the-transformation-octave/
(An aside, Cleo was the name of a siamese cat I had as a child. She was wonderful, but she had a weird habit of eating wool, so our jumpers/sweaters were never safe. Anything red was particularly vulnerable)
Great piece Jonathon. I can recommend Gary J Sparks’ Valley of Diamonds, a very readable commentary on Marie Louise Von Franz’s rather dense Number and Time. Jung asked MLvF to continue his work on numbers as he felt he had not done enough himself.
I can see why you'd say that Jacquie, but I not sure it's that simple, partly because 'father' and 'son' are interpretations. Cynthia Bourgeault actually begins her book on The Law of Three that I quote above by arguing it's a mistake to make 'the holy spirit' into the missing feminine. She feels the feminine is more closely related to time, and manifests in the dynamism of the law of three. It's well worth a read.
good point, especially since most of the bible is a metaphor, which is why there are so many translations / interpretations. and...knowledge is structured in consciousness.
Speaking here from the experience of multiple decades of meditation practice, working with Cynthia Bourgeault's concepts and various integrally informed developmental models. both personally, in business and in my coaching practice.
For me, the key here is the notion of Reconciling. What it takes to initially recognize apparent opposites, then hold the paradox in tension without collapsing to either pole. Typically the pattern is first to not even recognize you're holding to one side (that's just the way it is), to then noticing the opposing force but demonizing it, to then holding the two in some kind of (creative) tension. This is tremendously difficult. The act and intention of "just being" in the eye of the storm calls out latent capacities, evokes something deeper/ broader from within or beyond us. Possibly catalyzes an evolutionary/ developmental process, which is now a required response to challenge.
This ability to bear the tension can be supported by State practices (prayer, meditation, ++) and also by recognition that one may be growing up to some broader stage unfolding.
Long story short—I have found Law of Three a profoundly pragmatic support.
The transcendent function.
Great, Jonathan!
When the Latins were a disorganized rabble overshadowed by Etruscan civilization, they sacrificed a cow, divided themselves into three groups and shared the meat in a ritual. Division is combined as a unity. If anyone was attacked, the rest would fight under their temporary leadership.
They called being a member of this community socius and the whole thing societas; this is usually translated as an alliance. The equal groups was called tribus (tribe = a third) and the ritual was distribution (sharing among egalitarian tribes). But socius comes from the o-grade form of the Indo-European root sekw- (as in second, sequel and sign) meaning to follow.
This was a network society, and we now find ourselves as temporary followers of leaders like you on this occasion. The big names on the internet now encourage us to join their tribe or make one of our own. It was only in medieval France that society became a centralized territorial state, like the failed nation-states we live in now, undermined by the digital revolution and lawless money flows.
PS. The icon for three in Chinese also means many.
Thanks John - that's an intriguing historical and etymological hinterland.
I find myself thinking about the tetrahedron, defined in terms of pairs of orthogonal lines (rather than sitting on a face).
And now, is an orthogonal pair self and other in respect of a putative single dimension (concept or characteristic)?
I think this is my favorite in the series so far. I am similarly grappling with Woo, and I'd like to apply for a license at some point- https://adamkaraoguz.substack.com/p/what-is-the-right-amount-of-woo. Pyramids can be three-sided (Tetrahedron), just not the Great Pyramids. So you can have three that aggregate into the fourth that way.
And did you make that Wooness diagram yourself?!
It's impressive 🙃
Ha, I did indeed.
Thanks Adam. I am not sure I have the authority to grant one, but I like the question in your post. (And thanks also for your last communique which I haven't managed to respond to yet, but will).
*Reads entire essay. Starts humming Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping”…
😍🤣
Very interesting. I feel called to indulge a little bit.
Eightness: I have no straight lines, hard angles or end points. Fun fact: If you flip me on my side I form a passable infinity. Thus I am all the numbers and beyond number.
Nineness: I am the reflection. Plus one!
One small thing: "To take the Great Pyramid ... threeness (triangles on three sides)" My mind kept skipping over this. There are triangles on four sides in a pyramid are there not? However you still get to seven so your larger ideas still hold.
Overall, while I have an almost primordial attachment to 4 and 7, I agree with 3 being fundamental. Three is the once and future king of numbers.
In sum: 3 >> 4.
"If you flip me on my side I form a passable infinity."
That's like a line from a dating app.
Where Esoterica meets Erotica... 😂
Oooh I like that. The desire to possess the secrets of existence.
BTW in that line too I got flip, form[ation] and fun all into one sentence. More threeness…
Thanks Jeff. That’s an interesting mistake I made. And it’s funny in the context of the piece. It seems you can have a pyramid with a square base that has five sides (including base) or a triangular pyramid with four sides (including the triangle base) but you can’t, of course(!) have a square base giving rise to the three sides that comprise the pyramid. Well spotted! I’ll revise the text somehow or add a note later.
I recommend reading John O’Donohue‘s ‘For the Unknown Self’ and also ‘For the Time of Necessary Decision’. You’ll find them in his book, To Bless the Space Between Us. I think you will find, in his language and ideas, what you are looking for.
🙏
It’s just that my instinct tells me that you need to read thinkers who use more poetic language to elucidate what you are searching for. John O’Donahue combines philosophy and poetry so fruitfully! If you have not read the book I mentioned, although it’s a ‘dip into’ type of book, the few pages of prose that he wrote before each chapter are not to be overlooked!
From 1000 years ago the gamut of singable notes, was thought of in terms of overlapping hexachords. (It wasn’t until the 18th century when major and minor scales were firmly established as the basis for European music). A hexachord was a six note scale. Do re mi fa sol la. Fourness arises from threeness in this because you have two groups of 3 notes, divided by a semitone, but each group has 2 whole tones, the complete hexachord containing 4 whole tones!
Wow. That's very intriguing, Suzanne. I had a feeling that I needed someone who really understands music to make sense of the law of seven. Thanks.
Gnostic Tarot by Lee Irwin has a lot of interesting commentary on the esoteric meaning of numbers (2-10). You might find it complementary to your inquiry
When a person or group needs to decide on a path, there are two ways this can be handled. In the first, which appears more commonly, a proposal arises and is debated pro and con. The proposals are run through serially, and the first good-enough one becomes the path taken. This favors habit -- whatever worked well-enough before is likely to be considered first, likely to be judged well-enough again. In the second way multiple proposals are entertained in parallel; the decision is held open beyond the pro-and-con considerations of any one of them. So, in relation to any one of the proposals, if the path finally taken is in another direction, that's like your third force coming in to disrupt the pro-con duality -- from the perspective of that particular, often more habitual, pro-con conderation.
I am still unsure exactly what Third Force looks like, but I can see what you are saying here. I imagine it does often arise in a situation where neither of two choices is attractive, and perhaps even when none of many choices is attractive (it's still affirming, denying, reconciling). 🙏
In part I'm thinking of Steven Johnson's book on decision theory, Farsighted. Johnson focuses on getting beyond our usual pro-con approach, developing a more diverse and complex mapping of the space of prospects rather than just weighing the obvious suspects. Where Johnson doesn't go, but fits with his stance, is into how mapping uses a different region of the brain than inner speech, the Posterior Parietal Cortex (PPG) across both hemispheres (where as McGilchrist emphasizes, inner speech is largely Broca's and Wernicke's areas of the LH).
EEG studies show the PPG to be "heavily involved in spatial awareness, attention, and decision-making, supporting ... mental navigation and object manipulation". Philosophers from Aristotle on (including Sarah Wilson) have been famously fond of walking, exploring language's elaborations in a context of spatial awareness. Might spatial awareness then, centered through the PPG, enable decisions from the advantage of commanding perspectives of maps of larger scope than language-based rationalities? May this be where your Third Force enters?
Speaking of spatial awareness please check out a more-than-wonderful book by Paul Holman titled Living Space Openness And Freedom Through Spatial Awareness
Thank you so much! My local bookstores can't easily get that, so (despite disgust with Bezos) just bought the Kindle version. But found and ordered a fascinating book locally while seaching, also on topic: The Open Space: Theatre as Opportunity for Living by Roger Grainger.
In Rowson and Pascal's (ed.) Metamodernity, Vervaeke and Mastropeitro's article also brings space in intriguingly, if opaquely. I'm increasingly convinced, to quote Sun Ra, "Space is the place."
Strange how the violence of zero is not considered, it demands a level playing field by remove what exists.
Physics, three body problem = physical reality, three mind problem, when the T mind and T body are separated and colonialists, they need their squares on a round planet, and the hard edges of determination and it’s mean behaviours that can no longer dance, but only destroy for flatness and stillness of library.
Extinction is our confidence, not our wonder, the laws of judgements can no longer illuminate humility with simple math.
I did consider what Zero might say. And by extension, infinity, and the alpha and omega. I can also see the connection between extinction and current events. But it didn't feel right for this post.
I don’t know if studying zero for many years has any merit to conventional wisdom, all I discovered was that colonials are incredibly violent both in words and stiffness, my commiserate fellow was Nora Bateson who could interpret a different dialogue of meaning and uses the incongruous blanket title of polymath’s, which I am ok with while exploring ‘human’ numbers.
As you said, *seven* is mind blowingly complex, considering 3 crystallizes and can not move.
I too wrestled with the Law of Seven. The Law of Three is spiritual way of describing what complexity science calls emergence. But the Law of Seven is about transformation. Here is a link to my application which I call the Transformation Octave. https://justconflict.org/summary/of-the-transformation-octave/
I really need to print this out and read it slowly!
H2. O...the third thing.
Haven't read it but didn't guenon write a book on the Triad?
Are 3 and 4 heaven and earth?, The sphere and the cube?
Delicious post. It accords with the name of your substack.
Thanks Cleo. It made me happy to read that.
(An aside, Cleo was the name of a siamese cat I had as a child. She was wonderful, but she had a weird habit of eating wool, so our jumpers/sweaters were never safe. Anything red was particularly vulnerable)
My husband had a Siamese. She was prone to what we used to call vestibalism. She ate an entire bathroom sash. It was awkward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly_vxI4nllA
*bathrobe sash
Great piece Jonathon. I can recommend Gary J Sparks’ Valley of Diamonds, a very readable commentary on Marie Louise Von Franz’s rather dense Number and Time. Jung asked MLvF to continue his work on numbers as he felt he had not done enough himself.
So , fill in the blank (what's missing) FATHER SON _ _ _ _ _ _? MOTHER - right?
(mother + father = child)
So
Is the HOLY TRINITY: Father - Son - Holy Ghost? the first Ghosting of WOMEN?
Or is the Holy Ghost the Woman in a Holy form? or the power of three to diss one
Can anyone explain how this triad grouping has helped humanity avoid: judgement, war, dominanation, retaliation, power and control?
anyone?
When all along the triad code for our ability to survive, collaborate and thrive is EI AI O
I can see why you'd say that Jacquie, but I not sure it's that simple, partly because 'father' and 'son' are interpretations. Cynthia Bourgeault actually begins her book on The Law of Three that I quote above by arguing it's a mistake to make 'the holy spirit' into the missing feminine. She feels the feminine is more closely related to time, and manifests in the dynamism of the law of three. It's well worth a read.
good point, especially since most of the bible is a metaphor, which is why there are so many translations / interpretations. and...knowledge is structured in consciousness.
I think you will like Cynthia Bourgeault. She addresses your point quite forcefully.
grateful :) it has been a spiritual thorn for me