11. Body Thinking
The eleventh sector of the Wheel is Body Thinking. In the language of the Wheel Body means physical; solid; matter; mass; space; particle; cerebellum, brain stem, reptilian brain; conditioned learning. Thinking means to relate; to reason, both analytically and analogically; ratiocination; order; consider; reflect; ponder; cogitate; dialectic; symbolize; conceive; connect; deliberate; either-or; both-and; enumerate; hind brain; breathing; language; and reflection.
In the body this part of the Wheel corresponds to the Legs and Skeleton. In our personal life it pertains to Friendship, and in civilization to Technology. In the ancient wisdom traditions of the West, and in the Zodiac, it is symbolized by Aquarius, the Water Giver.
In grammarical categories it pertains to the Verbal Forms, which have nine parts:
- Past
- Present
- Future
- Conditional
- Indicative
- Subjunctive
- Passive
- Active
- Infinitive
This eleventh sector of the Wheel contains the ninth point of the Enneagram, the top of the "thinking triangle." The archetypal symbol or myth for the drive inherent to this sector of the Wheel and the Enneagram is Pluto, to actualize and to invent. The complementary impulse is in the fifth sector of the Wheel, Body Willing, with its historical drive to individuality.
In life this is the age span of from 70 to 77 years. This time of life is primarily concerned with "helping others as a friend to participate in civilization." In this stage of life, after the public implementation of ideas in the last seven year cycle of life, the person must move on and clarify and communicate the ideas which will be of most value to others. The penultimate creative expressions are now achieved, as the person realizes how their gifts to humanity fit in with others and are a part of a larger global civilization.
In history the Aquarian Age is the current epoch in which we live. It is the so called "New Age." Technically speaking "New Age" means a change from one historical era of some 2,160 years to another. This meaning is based on the longest natural time cycle known to Man, a 25,920 year cycle observed and calculated exactly by many cultures around the world. This cycle is marked by the apparent slow progression of the entire Zodiac as a whole in the sky in relation to the Sun. This rotation is caused by the slight wobble or variation in the spin of the Earth around its axis. This 25,920 year cycle of the vernal equinox point is known as the Cosmic Year, or Platonic Year, and is given historical significance by all cultures, except only the scientific culture, which has also observed the cycle, but see no significance to it. Most cultures of the world understand the cycle as symbolizing the progression of the mental age of humanity as a whole. For each 72 years, or revolution of the Earth around the Sun, the ecliptic advances one degree out of 360 degrees. Each of the twelve basic sectors is 30 degrees and lasts 2,160 years, a month in the Cosmic Year. Thus each Age is a month in the Cosmic Year, and corresponds to seven years of Human maturation.
This historical progression began with the first mutation jump from animal-man to human-man, to Neolithic Man, with "spirit" consciousness capable of abstract speech. The progression of the Cosmic Year has recently reached the mental age of 35 with the change from the Fifth Age of Pisces, into the Sixth Age of Aquarius, the Age of Technology. Although many look to the future for the change from one historical Age to another to occur, the transition point appears to have been February 4th, 1962. The New Age is already here! In the language of the Wheel, we have moved from a time of emphasis of Spirit Feeling (Piscean Age and its world religions) to a time where Body Thinking (ie - computers and other technologies) are emphasized.
Now, suddenly, everything is different. It is like the ancient myth of the Flood where the old cultures are all swept away. The Arc is the knowledge of the past, and all of us living today are potential Noahs. The time of great catastrophes and disasters which comes with such a transition finally ended in 1994. The last 60 year cycle as observed in the Chinese time frame has been the worst in recorded history, with the Nazis, World War II, The Holocaust, the Soviet Empire, widespread dictatorships, massacres of millions of innocent people, wholesale genocide of entire cultures, and pollution and rape of nature on an unprecedented scale. Now that is over, at least the worst of it is over, and the momentum is past. The destruction of the past has given way to the creativity of the present, and hope for the future. The New Age has an entirely new paradigm, on all levels and in all areas of civilization. Today's problems demand new answers, new approaches. We cannot simply reuse the answers of the past. The new answers we need are already at hand or are close to hand. To find them and to use them we have only to awaken to the messages and information that are all around us, and to come together in new communities of Metapolitical action.
The awakening to the new solutions requires a realization that all of the basic human impulses/drives, as shown for instance on the Enneagram, have completely changed. There is now a new psychological configuration. As Human beings we are now psychologically and spiritually different than the humans of the past. Even our bodies are beginning to change. We have a new alignment of our psychic energies. The new internal configuration calls for an entirely new approach to harnessing these drives. For this reason many of the old methods and concepts will no longer work. For instance, the impulse of Understanding, symbolized on the Enneagram as Uranus, has made a fundamental shift. This is discussed in more detail in my Essay on Understanding, but simply put, the old approach to understanding which used to work best in the Piscean Age was to look to matter (Body Sensing). This was the basis of Science. Now the alignment has changed, now Understanding works best when it is personally applied (Soul Willing). Science is now focusing away from matter, to quantas of energy where various probabilities of activity occur. The important science of today and tomorrow is Psychology, not Physics. This same kind of fundamental shift applies to all of the basic potentials of Human kind, to Healing, to Initiative, to Leadership, to Inspiration, to Invention, to Creativity, Community, Ritual, etc. That is why it is so important to really understand what the "New Age" means. By understanding HOW things have changed, it is easier to navigate our way into the future. We can know what the best approaches will be to actualize our potentials. We can avoid some of the pitfalls, keep from getting too lost, too often. That is the ultimate meaning of the Wheel and why it has resurfaced at this time. It is a kind of compass by which we can navigate for ourselves, chart our own path into the future. We can know which of the methods of the past are relevant and likely to work today, and which will now work only poorly, if at all. We can be guided into the quickest routes of realization, the most effective modes of Metapolitical action.
We know that in the Aquarian Age of Body Thinking, which is epitomized by technology, everyone gets to find their own way, starting from the dark towards the light. There is no doubt that the New Age is already here, and not some kind of utopia that lurks around the corner, somewhere in the future. It is obvious that Humanity has already entered into the global technological civilization of Aquarius, the technical age of spiritual democracy. The Internet and the World Wide Web are prime examples. The Piscean Age of Empires is dying and being replaced by global consciousness, a one world network of friends - Spaceship Earth / Global Village. Whole Earth mentality, democracy and the rights of the individual are now paramount over the State/Empire/Nationalism structures based on fragmented, partial earth, enemy mentalities. The differences between people are now accepted and affirmed. As Keyserling puts it: "The myth of Satan versus almighty God has exploded, the individual now finds and creates their own way." Evil can now be recognized as the personal shadow which has to be integrated with the help of psychology. Beyond good and evil, a person can be grounded in the Infinite, in a Higher Self based on Awareness. Then the Sun will shed the light of superconsciousness into the previously dark inner reaches of the sub- conscious and unconscious. Both sides of the Human being, the dark and the light, will then be integrated into a holistic field. When rooted in Awareness the individual can transcend their ego, their transitory roles and personalities. They can travel full circle from a limited ego, little "I", disassociated with the Self, into Awareness, the Self, where the false ego is shattered. Then the way goes back from out of the Self into the true Ego, the big "I" which is in contact with the Self and which includes the "I" of all others in the Universe. With the holistic Ego a person finds fulfillment by development of their unique potential, their personal path of service to the Universe. They join in the Metapolitics of the Earth.
Instead of mastery and loyalty common to the last age, work and friendship are the common denominators of the sixth age of humanity. The friendship of equals replaces the parental or schoolmaster discipline of the last age. This means the end of Gurus as a major historical force. This emphasis on friendship has already begun to transform all of society. The trend will continue as the archaic institutions of the past decay and are replaced by dynamic new structures in tune with the times.
The transformation has begun on all levels, including the spiritual disciplines. For example, the School of Wisdom is now a gathering of friends based on individual understanding, tolerance and merit. Followers are discouraged and adherence to specific dogmas, Gurus and authoritarian lineage is anathema. The transformation has also already had strong effects on the family where friendship is the new basis of both husband- wife and parent-child relationships. It is effecting business where the boss-employee relationship is becoming friendlier and less polarized-hierarchial. It is effecting world governments where the enemy us-them mentality is dying in favor of global cooperation.
The holistic view of friendship on all levels has arrived: between all of humanity with each other, between humans and all other forms of life on this planet - the important re-emergence of ecological awareness on a world level, and even between humanity and its ever more "user friendly" technology. The Piscean Age of industrialism and empire - which was at the end severely polluted and unfriendly to the Earth - is dead or is dying. So we should not be concerned with trying to destroy the old civilization. We should instead focus on Metapolitical activities where we build new structures to replace the old, new structures that are based on environmental awareness, that are friendly to the Earth and all forms of being and consciousness.
In geography this sector of the Wheel corresponds to the one twelfth of the Earth from 20 degrees longitude West to 10 degrees longitude East. This includes Western Europe and West Africa. The birthplace of technology and humanism, the Western European culture expanded through colonization to unify the globe by 1962 with a technological information society. The ideal for cultures grown in this sector of the world is mastery and individuality (Body Willing) as with the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.