The Human Psyche System and Living System Psychology

Living System Psychology - Is It Practical; Is It an Advantage; and Why Does It Appear Strange?

I write this Post to answer three Questions I am asked about Living System Psychology: Is It Practical; Is It an Advantage; and Why Does It Appear so Strange?

From the Mindset of an emerging Stage A' - Living System, 2nd Renaissance Human who is aligned with the current World Human Transformation, the answers to these questions are simple and direct. They are Yes, it is Practical - Yes, it is an Advantage to use - and It is Not Strange at all because it is the natural thing to believe and use if you wish to be most successful now. I explain these answers next.

Psychology as the central underlying foundation for human life and work is a new concept and practice that emerge at Stage A'. This became recognizable in human affairs about 1900 A.D. except for rare earlier individual examples. Its importance for emerging leaders has accelerated since the 1970's. Conventional linear system life and work (Stage E) or earlier stages of human psyche evolution (Stages A through D) cannot perceive psychology in this way and therefore cannot practice it. Relativistic system life and work (Stage F) acts as an essential bridge stage between the linear system pattern and the living system pattern of life and work.

What I am saying is valid but it may be diffficult to understand until one is able to adopt the new Mindset. It should become clearer as you discover the contents of this Blog and the other Isis Group Network materials.

Now let's answer three Questions from a Living System human's Mindset.

Living System Psychology - Is It Practical?

Rudolph Steiner, an early example of a Stage A' - Living System Human, wrote near 1900 A.D in his book Theosophy:

"Only he who understands human life can become a truly practical man."

Steiner was a pioneer in transforming human life and leadership. He was saying that the practical management of human affairs is based on a profound understanding of inner human life rather than the conventional focus on external non-human forces and events. His ideas are a natural result of the new stage of the human psyche, the Stage A'.

It is a discontinuous break from what generally exists even today. It is a leap in what it means to be Practical. It is the leap from the conventional focus of being Practical in terms of the external material world to being Practical by focus on 1) First understanding the internal world of human affairs and their psychology so 2) Second it is then possible to become Practical in the external world in transformed ways.

Carl Jung, another Living System pioneer, wrote in 1961 in the memoir of his life's work - Memories, Dreams, Reflections:

"There is a general feeling to be sure, that we have reached a turning point in the ages, but people imagine the great change has to do with nuclear fission or fusion, or with space rockets. What is currently taking place in rh human psyche is usually overlooked."

Both Jung and Steiner were saying essentially the same thing - That the key to understanding human life and taking Practical actions is the underlying psychological patterns of mankind. Thus, Practical actions really flow from the underlying psychology.

There is in progress a massive transformation in what is Practical. Human psychology is now primary for those who can adopt the new Mindset. Living System Psychology, the Human Psyche System and its stage-by-stage process of human evolution are the central tools for understanding human life and thus being Practical in the emerging Stage A' pattern.

Living System Psychology - Is it an Advantage?

A good way to answer this question comes from a talented software "Hacker" named Paul Graham, whose psyche appears to operate in the Mindset of an emerging Stage A' leader. (Please note that a Hacker is a talented sofware creator - A Cracker is the software criminal that does harmful and illegal things with computers.) Paul Graham wrote in an essay about successful software development entitled Beating the Averages:

"In business there is nothing more valuable than a technical advantage your competitors don't understand."

He was writing about software development, but his concept applies broadly. Living System Psychology is now the core "Technology" for effective leading-edge human action, including leadership, organization and entrepreneurship. Because almost nobody now has any idea about what Human System Psychology is or how it can be used, it is a powerful competitive advantage for those who do know. The vast majority of your competitors don't understand it. Even in the future it will remain a great advantage because the majority of existing individuals and organizations will probably not be able to transform themselves or their organizations to Stage A' Living System Life and Work.

So, Living System Psychology is an Advantage.

Living System Psychology - Why Does It Appear Strange?

Living System Psychology is based upon Living System science that results from the Stage A' human psyche. The psychologies of earlier Human Psyche System stages are based upon non-living system sciences. Therefore, they are discontinuously different from Living System Psychology - They are inconsistent with it.

One example illustrates this psyche stage difference. The well known Freudian approach to psychology is based upon and consistent with Linear System science (Stage E science). While the still lesser known Jungian approach to psychology is based on the emerging Living System science (Stage A' science).

Linear System science and Living System science are qualitatively discontinuous. From the mindset of Linear System Science, anything consistent with Living System science will appear to be Strange. From the mindset of Living System science, anything consistent with Linear System science will appear to a limited special case of Living System science where the "living" characteristics are reduced to zero.

The first, Linear System science, is the science of independent mutually exclusive events on the conscious plane of reality. Linear System science statistical distributions are peaked, like the well known Gaussian, or Bell Curve, distributions. The logic of Linear System Science is Either-Or, not both simultaneously. It is uni-polar. This Linear System Science is what is generally known as "science" and therefore is not Strange to most.

The second, Living System science, is the science of inter-dependent complementary bi-polar events on both the conscious surface plane of reality and the unconscious underlying plane of reality - With the unconscious plane of reality being the primary guiding influence. This is called the "Morphic Field", or underlying guiding field. Living System science statistical disributions have no most probable peaks. They follow a Power Law distribution, commonly refered to as the "Long Tail". The logic Living System science is Both-And. It is bi-polar. This Living System science is not yet generally known as "science" and therefore does appear Strange to many.

Therefore, from a Living System mindset, Living System Psychology is Not Strange at all - But from a Linear System mindset it is Strange.

John Clayton Caris

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 3

Living System Psychology Review

This outline Reviews and summarizes the Foundation Principles and Key Concepts for Living System Psychology that I presented in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

First - To understand the emerging World Transformation to Living System Life and Work we must understand the history of mankind - for both individuals through a lifetime and for collectives through history.

Second - The Human Psyche System stage profile of one’s psyche determines the nature of one’s current life.

Third - The psyche stage profile of a collective’s leaders determines the nature of that collective’s current life.

Fourth - The Human Psyche System evolution process has two complementary parts for each stage that follow each other in cyclical sequence. It is bi-polar. One pole is Inter-Stage Transformation – The shorter, turbulent, discontinuous leap to a new stage. The other pole is Intra-State Development – The longer, gradually changing, development within a given stage.

Fifth - Individuals born, raised and conditioned in a collective tend to evolve in their own life up to the most evolved stage of that collective. This is called Recapitulation.

Sixth - Not all individuals, collectives and their cultures are equally evolved. There is a diversity of dominant psyche stages and psyche stage profiles at different locations throughout the world, and even at one location. These stage differences are the source for much disagreement and conflict.

Seventh - There are two types of inter-stage psyche transformation for both individuals and collectives: The Recapitulation type – This is individual transformation up to the stage of their current collective. And the Transcendence type – This is individual transformation to a stage beyond the stage of their current collective stage.

Eighth - Individual Transcendence results in personal growth traumas and in the eventual transformation of their collectives. Individual transcendence always occurs before collective transcendence to the same stage. Collective Transcendence of leading-edge institutions results in the buildup to the transformation of other institutions they interact with. This leads to the eventual transformation of the World’s leading society into a new era of human history. That is now started again for the seventh time in human history.

Ninth - If an individual’s psyche stage evolution at any stage is prevented from going to completion, psychological problems are buried in the psyche - Mostly in the unconscious part of the psyche. At this time much of our society has reached the point in psyche evolution (Stage F pattern) where those buried problems naturally emerge from the unconscious. This contributes to the chaos of our time.

Tenth – Conclusion - We live and work at one of those few times in human history when a new era of human history emerges – The seventh. We name our new era - the 2nd Renaissance. The transcendent individual responsible for it we name the Stage A’ -Living System pattern human who uses what we define as 2nd Renaissance Living System Life and Work concepts and processes. This results in a transformed leadership/management profession and a new definition of who are truly practical persons and what are the right means for them to use.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts in this series:

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 1 - Foundation Principles
Living System Psychology Overview - Part 2 - Key Concepts

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 2

Living System Psychology – Key Concepts

This outline of Key Concepts for Living System Psychology extends the discussion of the Foundation Principles I outlined in Part 1 of this series of posts.

- Living System Psychology, its Human Psyche System and its structural stage process of human evolution are the knowledge foundation for understanding and implementing Living System Life and Work – Individual and collective. They are the tools for understanding what the current World Human Transformation is, how it evolved in human affairs, and where it is now going.

- The Human Psyche System is a non-physical energy system that organizes as a nodal network of psyche stage sub-systems and operates as a partially open Living System whose evolution progresses through a specific sequence of phases and stages – For a human individual through a lifetime and for human collectives through history.

- The Human Psyche System for an individual contains four sub-systems: The Personal Conscious; The Personal Unconscious; The Collective Conscious; The Collective Unconscious

- The Human Psyche System stages are like “Themes” that underlie human lives, groups and organizations. Human differences – individual and collective – at a given stage of evolution are like variations on the basic underlying “Themes”.

- Each Human Psyche System stage is a complete pattern of human conscious and unconscious life - a Life Paradigm. These stage Paradigms are shared human “Morphic Fields” that underlie individual diversity and local geographical collective differences worldwide.

- Human Psyche System stages are the underlying sources and driving forces for all that materializes in human affairs. So far in human life – individual and collective – seven stages have appeared on Earth. The seventh stage is just emerging and beginning to drive the current World Human Transformation to Living System Life and Work.

- Each individual Human Psyche System stage Paradigm has its own underlying pattern of emotions, thinking, motivation and behavior.

- Each collective Human Psyche System stage Paradigm has its own pattern of collective purpose, leadership/management, organization and entrepreneurship.

- Throughout the world at a given time, not all individuals and collectives are equally evolved. They live in different psychological spaces as determined by their Human Psyche System stage profiles.

- Individuals and collectives evolve through Human Psyche System stages in a specific sequence of stages and in a bi-polar cyclical process. One pole is Inter-Stage Transformation and the other pole is Intra-Stage Development.

- For Inter-Stage Transformation, individuals evolve by a discontinuous, non-linear leap from one psyche stage to the next at critical times in their life. These psychological leaps are usually traumatic, often painful, but lead to greatly enhanced human capacity.

- For Intra-Stage Development, individuals evolve by continuous, gradual, quasi-linear change within a given psyche stage until they experience stressful conditions their current stage cannot deal with. This leads to transformation to the next stage.

- Individual psyche system evolution usually continues through life, but it can stop, or may appear to retrogress under extreme conditions.

- Individual Inter-Stage Transformation is the root cause and driving force for collective Inter-Stage Transformation. Collective transformation occurs when both a critical mass of transformed leadership within the collective and forces from outside are reached.

- Collectives also undergo Inter-Stage Transformation by discontinuous, non-linear leaps from one psyche system stage to the next.

- Collective Inter-Stage Transformations are the chaotic, crisis filled, traumatic, destructive periods of history as one era decays and another is born.

- Collectives also undergo Intra-Stage Development by continuous, gradual, quasi-linear change within a given psyche stage until they experience stressful conditions their current stage cannot deal with. This leads to transformation build up. Transforming individuals are catalysts for the collective transformation.

- Collective psyche system evolution has continued through history. It forms a grand pattern and process for human history. Collective transformations take much longer than individual ones.

- Human Psyche System stage evolution, like the stage evolution of all Living Systems, is irreversible. Psyche stage transformation irreversibly changes the nature of stages already functioning in a given Human Psyche System.

- Reversible retrogression to earlier stages of the Human Psyche System does not occur. Linear systems can be reversible – But living systems, like the Human Psyche System, are non-linear and irreversible. The overall patterns of previous stages remain, but the details of how they are experienced in emotions, thoughts, motivation and behavior are discontinuously changed.

- Individuals live and work at a given time as guided by the characteristics of more than one psyche stage, but usually with a different degree of intensity for each stage. However, one stage in their psyche system profile is usually dominant.

- There is no evidence that an individual or a collective can skip a stage along their evolution sequence.

- A new stage of leadership has emerged throughout history when the world had become stagnant or consumed with excesses – A time when the world critically needed qualitative transformation in structure and process if mankind was to continue to advance.

- Today, those conditions are present again. New leader/managers functioning in a new Human Psyche system stage are emerging. They are undergoing the most profound psyche transformation in human history.

- The most evolved collectives within world society are beginning their collective transformation, amid crisis and destructive disorder, to a new phase of life and work. These institutions and their leadership/management are beginning to be re-created – Because they must if they are to successfully lead the world into the needed new era.

- There is evidence that our Creator has in process a Grand Plan for our lives and for human history. Our time seems to be experiencing the most critical transcendent turning point in that plan since mankind first appeared on Earth.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts in this series:

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 1 - Foundation Principles
Living System Psychology Overview - Part 3 - Review

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 1

Do not be concerned if you do not understand all that I write in the three posts of this Blog Series named Living System Psychology Overview. I am introducing you to a transformed human foundation for successful life and work. It is based upon a Living System Science concept and practice of human psychology that is dramatically different from conventional psychology.

As you become acquainted with the materials in this Blog named Human Psyche System and Living System Psychology, these posts and the ones to be published soon can make sense to you if you are willing and able to transform away from conventional mindsets. This a non-linear learning experience in which what you now know and believe are not only of little help to you - They may be a serious blockage to your learning. That is the way it is when you enter a path of learning that is a Discontinuous Break from what now exists. That is of course what is required if you are to understand the World Human Transformation now in progress.

Always recall the words of Frank Herbert, the author of the Dune Books. He wrote:
"The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand."

Hopefully this series of Blog Posts, this whole Blog and all the other Blogs of the Isis Group Blog Network will enable you to discover things you do not understand and thus be the beginning of your knowledge of today's emerging World Human Transformation and its marvelous new path for Living System Life and Work - The New Pattern for Success.

Now let's begin this Blog Series.

Living System Psychology Foundation Principles

This outline presents Foundation Principles for Living System Psychology.

- Living System Psychology is founded on the Human Psyche System and its Structural Stage process of psyche evolution for both human individuals and collectives.

- Living System Psychology and the structure and dynamics of the Human Psyche System are consistent with the principles of Living System Science.

- The Human Psyche System is the most fundamental living system at the core of human life. It and its living system evolution process underlie all human affairs. They are the cause for all that manifests humanly - Internally and in the external world.

- Whatever manifests in human affairs are constructs of the current Human Psyche System stage profiles of persons, collectives and their leaders at a given time and location. This means that all areas of human action, including science, the arts, emotions, thought, motivation, behavior, leadership/management, organization, entrepreneurship, are governed by the psyche stage profiles of the individuals and collectives taking the actions.

- Human Psyche Systems, for individuals and collectives, are non-physical energy fields composed of both conscious and unconscious sub-systems. The individual Human Psyche System is not the brain. The brain is a bio-physical living system that enables the individual to experience the psyche.

- The Human Psyche Evolution Process is a living system process. That means it is bi-polar and cyclical. The Human Psyche System evolves by continuous, quasi-linear development within a stage (Called Intra-Stage Development) and then evolves by discontinuous, non-linear transformation between stages (Called Inter-Stage Transformation). Periods of development evolution and transformation evolution follow each other in cycles.

- The Human Psyche Evolution Process for both individuals and collectives progresses through the same specific sequence of stages – Individuals through a lifetime and collectives through the course of human history.

- So far in individual and collective human life seven Human Psyche System Stages have manifested. The seventh is the stage that is now driving today’s World Transformation.

- The Purpose for Living System Psychology is to enable you to understand how the process of Human Psyche System evolution has led through individual lives and through human history up to the psyche stage now manifesting as today’s World Transformation to Living System Life and Work in the lives of leading-edge humans.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts in this series:

Living System Psychology Overview - Part 2 - Key Concepts
Living System Psychology Overview - Part 3 - Review

Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 3

The Third Concept -
Transcendence in Human Psyche System Evolution

The Third Concept concerning Transcendence goes like this: At certain critical transformation periods and locations in mankind's history there first appear isolated persons, and later small groups, functioning in a new human psyche stage pattern that is evolved to a stage beyond the collectives in which they are embedded.

The new individual human psyche stage transcends the patterns of other contemporary individuals and collectives. After these transcendent individuals set their own lives in new directions, they initiate a transcendent transformation in the collectives in which they are embedded. This ultimately recasts those collectives in the psychic image and likeness of their new individual stage.

The Concept of Transcendence means that individuals are Not blocked from evolving beyond their collectives. According to the Concept of Recapitulation individuals Cannot evolve beyond their collectives. Transcendence places individuals in the primary role of change and transformation in their own lives and in the world.

Thus a new and completely different type of leader/entrepreneur can emerge into the world, in all areas of life and work – Not just business. This new stage of leading-edge person is the driving force, during a period of chaos and decay, to begin building a new, more advanced epoch of local and world history. Now we have the Living System Psychology tool to understand what is happening in our current World Human Transformation to the emerging pattern of Living System Life and Work.

Let's discuss several manifestations of the Third Concept. Transcendent persons tend to emerge in significant numbers when the then dominant human psyche stage patterns and their existing human collectives and culture face major problems - Problems that its then dominant leader/manager class and organizations can no longer handle. That is what is happening today. And its “Tipping Point” was reached in mid-August 2007.

Of course, many conventional leader/managers are unaware consciously of their perilous situation. And those who are aware focus their energy on trying to fix-up the problems of their existing situation using conventional solutions within their limited ability to perceive the transformed reality around them.

This situation triggered by Transcendent individuals lead a build-up to their culture's transformation to its next stage. Recall that both individuals and collectives evolve through the same sequence of stage-by-stage psyche transformations - But not usually simultaneously. Individual Recapitulation to a given stage always comes after collective transformation to the same stage – But Individual Transcendence always comes before collective transformation to the new stage.

The Third Concept means that transcendent transformation for individuals and smaller groups always leads the later transformation of larger collectives (even whole cultures or civilizations) to the same more evolved stage. Thus, leading-edge persons and groups emerging at critical times in history become the catalysts and driving force for the eventual collective transformation into a new era of human history – An era that is discontinuously different from the preceding era.

That is exactly what is happening today for the seventh time in human history. That is exactly why transcendent forms for the leadership/management profession, organizational structure, operations process and entrepreneurship are critically needed. We believe that today’s transcendent forms must be consistent with the Stage A’ psyche stage patterns.

It is useful to consider what it can mean for you to transcend beyond the psyche stage pattern of your environment. It is a traumatic and bitter/sweet experience. First of all, you can expect to be in a lonely position. Your personal relationships with your collectives are sure to be different from what is then considered to be Normal. You may no longer receive understanding or validation from the collectives you are embedded in. You are commonly considered to be a cynic, a destructionist, or at least weird. This experience often extends as well to your personal relationships in addition to organization relationships. You may no longer receive understanding or assistance from your previous sources of support. You must learn to supply these things to yourself from within yourself.

This is why qualitatively new forms of personal understanding, of leadership/management and of entrepreneurship need to be learned and practiced. This is what the Isis Group Network was created – To give you, as an emerging leader, the transcendent learning and training to enable you to re-create yourself, to create new relationships, to create new organizations and to enable you to collaborate with other individuals and organizations to do the same.

Gradually you will meet other persons who are making similar discoveries about themselves and their work. You may even find a facilitator who enables you to discover what is happening to you. That is what my associates and I offer to you. We hope you will learn how to contribute to same way to others.

You need to realize that transcendence has exciting, liberating characteristics. For example - You need not be a pawn controlled by current collectives. In fact, you find yourself unable to be a pawn – a victim. If you can use your more evolved psyche stage patterns to achieve practical results in your life, and then in collective life, you will become a highly productive catalytic leader for the new era in your chosen areas of interest and in the world.

The Third Concept of Transcendence can be summarized as follows. At certain times in the lives of some persons, and at critical periods and locations in mankind's history, they undergo a transcendent stage of human psyche that emerges from within themselves. They are then enabled to set their own lives and at least their local region of the world in new directions. This is accomplished through their new understanding of life and new patterns for becoming a practical, more highly productive person in their chosen areas of work.

Because major collective transformations are always traumatic times in history, and because the world transformation now in process promises to be the most profound one in human history, we must not fear that the world will end. The old paradigm for life and work and its results are coming to an end, but the new one is being born. Our time is an example of the myth of the Phoenix in action in human affairs. For those who understand what is coming and act accordingly, this traumatic period can be the best of times.

After the dust settles from each of man's transcendent transformations, a new historical era enfolds and irreversibly modifies the prior ones. It re-interprets and re-directs the previously dominant parts of us into more productive channels. Our previous psyche stages remain within our psyche system, but their previous forms are transmuted from the effects of the new stage.

Our time is not to be feared. It is to be celebrated. It is to be approached with excitement because it gives us unusual opportunities for using our new Living System leadership/management, organizational form, operations process and entrepreneurship.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts of this series:

Three Concepts Underlying Human System Psychology - Part 1
Three Concepts Underlying Human System Psychology - Part 2

Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 2

The Second Concept –
Recapitulation in Human Psyche System Evolution

The Second Concept concerning Recapitulation goes like this: Each individual through a lifetime retraces, or Recapitulates, in his own psyche system evolution the prior stages of mankind's collective psyche evolution process up to the then dominant stage institutionalized in the collective cultures in which he is embedded. An individual's stage-by-stage Recapitulation process continues through a lifetime unless it is blocked by physical body problems or psychosocial environment. Physical body blockage can come from inadequate nervous system or brain development or their malfunction. Environmental blockage can result from parents, other family or peer groups, work and social organizations, professional and political organizations and overall society.

Gerald Heard also wrote in The Five Ages of Man about the psychological use of the Recapitulation concept from biology. He applied Recapitulation psychosocial evolution. He wrote in this regard:

"And so it can now be done with the cultural evolution of man and the evolution of consciousness that precipitates those cultural sequences. As Stanley Hall, Cyril Burt, ... Arnold Gesell and many other child psychologists (like Piaget) have established, the individual infant, child, and adolescent are recapitulating in their individual growth phases, the past epochs of man's psychosocial evolution."

Heard went on:

"This (Recapitulation) is, of course, an extension into human history of the biological principle that has helped in elucidating biological evolution: The principle that ontogeny, the history of the individual's development growth, is an epitome (or model) of phylogeny, the history of the race's development."

Here, I believe, Heard correctly recognizes that individual psyche system evolution precedes cultural evolution and that Recapitulation is involved in our individual lives. However, his comments might be confusing by themselves without the third concept underlying Living System Psychology. That is the concept involving Transcendence that I discuss in the next part. It explains how some persons can evolve in their individual lives beyond the most evolved psyche stage of their surrounding collective environment. Before discussing Transcendence, let’s first complete our discussion of Recapitulation.

The concept of Recapitulation has been around in biology and in child development for a long time. I find that it also applies beyond childhood - In fact throughout adult life. Living System Psychology demonstrates that human psyche stage evolution continues beyond infancy, through childhood and adolescent years and for the whole of a lifetime. The idea of continuing Recapitulation through an individual's whole lifetime has been realized only in recent years. It is essential for understanding what is happening to you and to mankind now, how you got to where you are now, how mankind got to where it is now and where you as individuals and collectives are going now.

Conventional thinking about human development still focuses almost exclusively on childhood and adolescence. This pattern of thinking began to break up in the 1960's. Dr. Arnold Gesell and co-workers published in 1956 their book Youth: The Years from Ten to Sixteen. Its viewpoint on human development began to broaden prior thought. In more recent years there have been researchers, such as Harvey, Hunt, and Schroeder who showed in their book, Conceptual Systems and Personality Organization, powerful evidence for continued psyche development in both young adulthood and mature adulthood. The pioneering works of Gerald Heard, Clare Graves and Ken Wilber gave me foundations for a lifelong sequence in human psyche evolution. I used this knowledge for starting to develop Living system Psychology living system applications to leadership/management, organization form, operations process and entrepreneurship.

I will not discuss here several more works that support the concept of structural stage evolution of the human psyche and its extension into and through an individual's adult years. I will give a list of references in Part 4 of this discussion.

The conclusions we can come to now are:

1) There are numerous works on human development that are consistent with and can be explained by Living System Psychology, and

2) The individual human psyche stage transitions causing today's leading-edge personal transformations and emerging world collective transformation are those of middle to late adulthood.

The Second Concept summarized is:

That individual human psyche stage evolution recapitulates prior stages of mankind's collective evolution up through the dominant stage then institutionalized in a person's overall culture and specific local collectives. Individual recapitulation continues throughout life unless the person's development is prevented by physical body infirmity or blocked by human environment limits or coercion.

There is a valid and important implication within what we have developed so far. It is that both individuals through a lifetime and collectives through history evolve along the same sequence of structural stages of human psyche system evolution. Thus, Living System Psychology defines a structural stage, psychosocial evolution process of mankind, both individual and collective.

The first two concepts (Part 1 and Part 2) carry us a long way. However, with them alone we can't fully develop Living System Psychology. To do so we must leap beyond just Recapitulation. Explaining why leads us to the Third Concept.

With only the First and Second Concepts we are led directly to the view that we as individuals are formed by our psychosocial environments and external circumstances. Recapitulation means that individual psyche stage evolution must follow collective psyche stage evolution. There is no way for individual psyche stage evolution to lead collective evolution. This is the conventional psychological viewpoint. It is very convenient for those who are driven to control us as individuals.

Such thinking seems to me to be a base for the behavior modification psychology of B.F. Skinner, the well-known American psychologist. His view is for me a very limited one. I believe it is a dangerous and ineffective one to use today to understand more highly evolved persons and collectives. Living System Psychology shows it applies to only less evolved stages of the human being up through Stage D psyche patterns.

To understand that a non-Recapitulation part of human evolution exists, we need the Third Concept. That is the concept of Transcendence. It is the concept that enables us to complete the formulation of Living System Psychology. It enables us the understand that individual human psyche system evolution can, and does, advance beyond that of the collective so the collective can be transformed by more advanced individuals. This is an exciting concept. It enables us to explain what can now happen to you and to the world today, and to tell you where you and mankind are going. This is what I discuss in Part 3.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts in this series:

Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 1
Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 3

Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 1

This discussion outlines three concepts underlying Living System Psychology, the emerging science of the Human Psyche System. They differ from concepts commonly used by psychologists. They are part of psychological base that leading-edge persons naturally use in their lives and work.

The First Concept –
Human Psyche Evolution Is the Story of Man and History

The First Concept goes like this: Our human psyche system is the base for everything in our life. The history of man is the eternal psychological process of the evolution of the human psyche, whether it is the individual’s story through a lifetime or mankind's collective story through history.

Therefore, everything that manifests in life and work is a result of an individual’s or a collective’s psyche stage profile, especially its dominant stage, for those who exist at a given time and location. This is a remarkable concept at the core of Living System Psychology.

It means that the Human Psyche System is the World’s most fundamental living system. Human psyche stage patterns are the underlying “Morphic Fields” for all human life and affairs – Individual and collective. Thus, all that happens in human actions are psyche stage results. They are the real cause of events in our lives and work.

It is important to emphasize that the Human Psyche System is not the brain. The brain is the biophysical instrument through which the psyche operates in our life on Earth. The human psyche is a non-physical energy field system that is the totality of all conscious and unconscious processes. The psyche is not only what is thought of as the conscious mind. It also includes the vast human unconscious. We believe the most advanced scientific understanding of the psyche should be based upon the emerging science of Living Systems that organize as open nodal networks. The Human Psyche System organizes this way.

There is much evidence consistent with this concept. I limit myself here ourselves here to only one one outstanding reference. Gerald Heard used the following words to introduce his book The Five Ages of Man:

"This (book) is also an interpretation of history in psychological terms…Man’s story is specifically the winning of an increasing awareness, purpose, intention, and objective. In short, man's history is the record of how he gained in the intensification of consciousness, of self-understanding. It is a psychological story. For the spiral of the evolution of the psyche is the theme of the human venture."

I turn to a second quotation from Heard’s book. He refers to the common failure of scholars to see history as a grand process or the story of human psyche evolution. I believe Heard was writing from the viewpoint of an early Stage A’ psyche pattern person and those of whom he writes were not yet evolved to that point. He wrote:

"This continued refusal to look at the huge design now exposed to our view is so unreasonable to suspect an unconscious prejudice."

He is right, but it goes beyond what he says. The refusal he mentions is both conscious and unconscious. What he sees as a prejudice is the prevailing dominant Stage E human psyche pattern in action – The linear, machine-like, conscious, objective, physical world focus of many historians, particularly in the West. Their psyche function is strongly in the Stage E – Linear 1st Renaissance paradigm.

Going on, Heard wrote:

"An unfriendly reception was given by most professional historians to Arnold Toynbee’s attractive and inspiring study of history."

Toynbee broke away from the prevailing scholarship of his time to see history as a vast, integrated process from which the specific patterns can be derived and related. His seminal work, A Study of History, is for me another example of early Stage A’ human psyche pattern in action. Yet, even Toynbee did not start his work from the viewpoint of evolution in human history. Gerald Heard wrote about Toynbee in the following words:

"Also that compendious historian (Toynbee) refused to start his interpretation with the basic platform of human history. He traced only (the results of that platform). He (Toynbee) started at the archeological level of history, not at its palentological base."

That is, Toynbee did not start with the human being's inner psychological evolution as the primary formative force of history, but started in the conventional pattern with the external world’s physical record of man. Possibly because he felt he was on firmer "scientific" ground. Certainly no structural stage human psyche evolution model like Living System Psychology was then available for him to use.

Further, Heard wrote:

"These two facts seem to me to be evidence of a deep unwillingness to face the possibility of a psychological interpretation of history in which the clue to man's historia is the evolution of his consciousness."

Again we believe Heard is right, as far as he goes. The appropriate clue to man's history is for me the story of the sequential evolution of man's psyche according to the process of Living System Psychology. Although man's conscious awareness is very important, it is only part of the human psyche’s story and probably not the most important part. I believe the human unconscious is even more important.

Finally Heard wrote:

"...though the historian as a rule seems anxiously desirous of denying any process in the history of this unique creature that strives toward goals (Mankind), the anthropologist is certain now that sequence can be detected ...and though it is still described in economic terms…this sequence… can hardly fail to be recognized by any open mind as being symptomatic of an alteration and evolution of ideas."

I highly recommend Gerald Heard's book, The Five Ages of Man. His work is consistent with Living System Psychology, but it does not include all of its psyche stages and seems not aware of its living system science foundation. Therefore, Heard’s book is incomplete for our purposes.

His treatment begins with what is the second stage of the Human Psyche system’s evolution process – the Stage B – Mystical Tribal human. His detailed discussion of the ages of man ends at what is the fifth stage of the human evolution process – the Stage E - Linear System – 1st Renaissance human. He only partly recognizes as the sixth stage – the Stage F – Relativistic Collectivist human. He does not recognize or discuss the emerging seventh human psyche stage – the Stage A' – Living System 2nd Renaissance human. However, his treatment of the middle stages of human psychological evolution (Stages B, C, D and E) is excellent.

In summary, the First Concept says that all human history, including what is happening today and what lies ahead of us, is the story of mankind's psychological evolution through a sequence of Human Psyche System stages. Psyche stage evolution is an eternal, universal process in creation, along which all individuals and collectives are distributed.

I wish to mention one development in recent years that may seem to be progress toward understanding human nature in psychological terms but, in my judgment, leads into a blind alley. That blind alley approach is called Psychohistory. It is the attempt to merge Freudian psychology and its psychiatry with the historical interpretation of persons and events. This field of study does recognize that history is psychologically based. But there, I believe, its validity ends for two reasons.

- First, it is based upon Freudian psychology, and thus has its inherent limitations of being strongly correlated with Stage E human psyche patterns. These limitations make it of doubtful use for persons evolved beyond the Stage E – Linear System 1st Renaissance human.

- Second, it is not consistent with the properties of living systems. Therefore it does not have the capacity to deal with the essential transcendent pole of the evolutionary process underlying human nature that is the cornerstone of Living System Psychology.

Jung’s work is the foundation I use for Living System Psychology and its Human Psyche System evolution process. His work can be extended to solve the two problems with Freudian based Psychohistory. I mention these things about Psychohistory because it is possible you may read or hear some direct or indirect reference to it. Without being aware of its inconsistency with Living System Psychology you could be misled to believe they are directly related and consistent. They are Not.

I discuss the Second Concept and the Third Concept next. They are extensions of the First Concept. They state the central roles played in human psyche evolution by what are called Recapitulation and Transcendence, respectively.

John Clayton Caris

Links to other Posts of this series:

Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 2
Three Concepts Underlying Living System Psychology - Part 3

Purpose of Human Psyche System and Living System Psychology

The purpose of the Human Psyche System and Living System Psychology Blog is to present a new foundation for more effective human life and work. It discusses the stage-by-stage evolution story of our Human Psyche System, formulates Living System Psychology and then uses this new knowledge to contribute to leadership practice for Living System Life and Work.

It is consistent with the wisdom of Rudolph Steiner, an early Living System life pioneer. He gave us the concept that only one who understands the underlying patterns of human life can become a truly practical person. He saw new leadership practice coming out of internal human nature rather than conventional leadership practice coming out of response to external non-human forces and events. This means nothing less than a discontinuous break from what generally exists.

John Clayton Caris