This Post is the third installment of Part 2 entitled Part 2-3 - Introduction to Living System Psychology. Its materials are available to you in two ways. First, as two downloadable files - One for the edited Text material and one for the Visual material. Second, in the Extended Post below you can read the Text of the Part 2-3 section.
This Post continues to present Part 2 of the The New Pattern for Success seminar series. Part 2 is entitled Mega-Force 1 - World Human Transformation to Living System Life and Work.
You can download the Text of Introduction to Living System Psychology - Part 2-3 - Here Download NewPatSuc-Part2-3-Text-032307.pdf
You can download the Visuals of Introduction to Living System Psychology -Part 2-3 - Here Download NewPatSuc-Part2-3-Vis-032307.pdf
Click on the Continue reading link below to read the Text of Introduction to Living System Psychology - Part 2-3 .
I look forward to your Questions, Comments and Suggestions.
John Clayton Caris
For Previous Posts in this Series - Click the Links below
- Series Announcement for New Pattern For Success Seminar
- Introduction for New Pattern for Success Seminar
- Mega-Forces Overview - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-1
- The World Human Transformation - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-2
- Nature of Living Systems - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-3
- The Kondratieff Wave Cycle - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-4
- The Demographic Bomb - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-5
- The Cataclysmic Confluence - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 1-6
- Make World Human Transformation Visible and Believable - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 2-1
- How a Living System Transforms - New Pattern for Success Seminar - Part 2-2
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LIVING SYSTEM LIFE AND WORK -
THE NEW PATTERN FOR SUCCESS
A Series of Presentation/Discussions
To Explore Critical Issues
For Your Life and Your Business
by Dr. John Clayton Caris
Isis Institute
Part 2 - Mega-Force 1 –
World Human Transformation
to Living System Life and Work
Begin Part 2–3 – Introduction to Living System Psychology
Now – We have the background to begin the third area of our work on Mega-Force 1 – To begin understanding how we as leading-edge individuals in our personal lives and human collectives through history are part of the World Human Transformation – How we have evolved stage-by-stage to arrive at the emerging Human Psyche System stage of Living System Life and Work. We will discuss what this emerging stage is, where it came from stage-by-stage, where it is taking us and how it is now transforming today’s conventional pattern for success.
To do these things I use Living System Psychology – The structure and dynamics of the Human Psyche System. I have been led to develop it over the years by standing on the shoulders of several giants. It explains how mankind, and our own individual lives, can evolve through six stages of the human psyche up to today’s transition to the seventh stage. It shows that indeed the dominant stage of our Human Psyche System is the underlying force – The Morphic Field – for what happens in our life. Each stage has its own pattern of life and work, its type of science and its pattern for leadership and organization and its pattern for success – All of which first arrive on Earth as great advancements for the person and for mankind and then finally become ineffective and are replaced by those of the next stage during a cataclysmic period of transformation.
That is exactly what is happening today – The currently dominant human stages have become ineffective – but most do not yet see this – and we are within a period of growing chaos – that most do see but do not yet understand. This situation is the insignia of underlying transformation to the next human stage. Our objective is to see and understand. Let’s do it.
An old saying is – Human Nature Never Changes. That is Not Correct! The great mass of people may remain stuck at their current dominant psyche stage for personal and/or human environment reasons. But, the leading-edge of persons and organizations continue to progress through a specific sequence of stages in life and work – And today leading-edge people stand on the threshold of the greatest transcendence in their human nature in history – the Seventh. Understanding and transforming to this newly emerging human nature is the key to success from now on.
Please remember – That the slides I use from this point forward are organized summaries for your use later, as well as guides for my discussions. I am not going to read the slides to you, so my words may not exactly match the slides.
Let’s prepare for the stage-by-stage story of our evolution as humans this way.
Recall that Rudolf Steiner said – To become a truly practical person we must understand human life. I took his wisdom seriously. In 1972 I began my quest to discover, develop and apply new theory and practice for leaders during the world transformation then beginning to accelerate almost totally out of sight by the mass of persons and organizations. This was a great strategic opportunity – A new approach to leadership and organization that worked – But was almost totally unseen! I was fascinated with this story then just barely beginning to make sense to me.
My enthusiasm has grown since then as my understanding of Living System science, Human Psyche System evolution and its emerging Stage A’ emerged out of my research and applications. I was guided to develop Living System Psychology in this process.
Let’s get acquainted with Living System Psychology. I use a few slides to define its new terminology and structure. I will point out the key ideas. You have detailed slides for later reading and reference.
Slide 2 – Diagram of Individual Human Psyche System Structure
You know the psyche is a living energy system in which we are embedded. You need to be aware of its structure that forms through several stages. This slide shows you its structure when fully developed – It has two bi-polar dimensions and four sub-systems.
The two psyche system dimensions are:
– The Personal/Collective Dimension; and
– The Conscious/Unconscious Dimension.
The four subsystems of the individual psyche system are:
– The Personal Conscious – a central portion is called the Ego
– The Personal Unconscious – a central portion is called the Shadow
– The Collective Conscious – contains the conscious patterns and forms of what is
called Culture
– The Collective Unconscious – contains energy patterns shared by all humans
called Jungian Archetypes
The Psyche system is open in two ways:
– Open through the Conscious subsystems to external experience on the Operating plane of life and work through the physical senses; and
– Open through the Unconscious subsystems to internal experience and the
knowledge of the universe on the underlying Morphic field plane of life and work through
the intuitive senses.
Each psyche sub-system is a fascinating story whose details are beyond our needs now.
Slide 3 – Human Psyche System Model Terminology
This table defines Human Psyche System terminology for identifying the human psyche stages. There are seven psyche stages known so far. Each stage is a whole pattern of human life. Each has its unique patterns for life purpose, motivation, learning, leadership, organization, relationship, etc.
The first six stages – A through F – Compose Phase I of human life. Phase I contains three bi-polar cycles of two stages each. The stages of each cycle are complementary opposite psychological patterns of each other:
– Cycle 1 – Stage A – Primitive, Hunter Gatherer Man and
Stage B – Mystical, Tribal Man
– Cycle 2 – Stage C – Heroic, Early Imperial Man and
Stage D – Absolutistic. Medieval Man
– Cycle 3 – Stage E – Linear System, 1st Renaissance Man and
Stage F – Relativistic, Socialistic Man.
The seventh stage – Stage A’ – Living System, 2nd Renaissance Man begins a new Phase II of human life. The current world human transformation of leading-edge persons into Stage A’ is Mega-Force 1. It is a unique event in history. It is not just a Stage transformation – But also, the coming of a whole new Phase that breaks the underlying patterns for all previous stages of human life. It is a big deal – That is why I call it The World’s Biggest Story that is Almost Invisible.
To the right of each stage pattern name I give in parentheses the life period when a given psyche stage tends to be dominant for highly evolved persons living in an advanced society today. For example – The life of Infants from birth to about 1 year is dominant at Stage A – The life of Young Children from 1 year to about 2 ½ years is dominant at Stage B – The life of Older Children is dominant at Stage C – The life of Adolescents from late childhood to mid-teens tends to be dominant at Stage D – The life of Young Adults tends to be dominant at Stage E. Life at Stages F and A’ arrives later and is more complex.
Earlier Stages can remain dominant in the lives of less evolved persons and groups much later in their chronological ages. For example, Terrorists behave as being driven by underlying Stage C and D dominance. Of course, I am not saying that all humans driven by Stages C and D are terrorists. This fascinating situation we discuss later.
Slide 4 – Diagram of Human Psyche System Stages
This diagram adds understanding. It shows first the Phase I life as three cycles of two stages each. You see the psyche’s Conscious/Unconscious dimension forming at Cycle 1 and the Personal/Collective dimension forming at Cycle 2. At Stage D, or Adolescence, the psyche’s basic structure is complete. Throughout the world, the underlying patterns of Stages A through D are uniform.
But, Cycle 3 brings a mirror-image human behavior split between the West and Orient. Later in this Part 2 discussion I will use this split to explain world geo-political and economic forces over the last 200 years – The materialist dominance of the West during its Stage E rise and dominance and the more recent materialistic power of the Orient as its Stage F rose to shared dominance with Stage E. More on this fascinating insight later.
Each Phase I stage is driven by its own type of End-Point Goals. This has profound effects on how individuals and organizations find purpose, are motivated, form relationships, organize, operate and do strategy work.
Stages A, C and E are each driven by a different type of Individualism and independence – While Stages B, D, and F are each driven by a different type of Collectivism and dependence. For example, the reasons for the recent rise of political correctness, populism and drug dependencies are no mystery, they are to be expected – They are underlying Stage F behavior characteristics.
All of Phase I life is a process of human Flip-Flops in each Cycle from one type of unbalanced individualism to its opposite as one type of unbalanced collectivism.
You note that Stage A’ is shown as a totally different pattern – End-Point goals and flip-flops between Individualism and Collectivism are gone. Life becomes continuous flow process and interdependence-collaboration driven. Goals become milestones embedded in a continuing process – Not ends in themselves. This has profound meaning for the emerging pattern of life and work, especially for leadership, organization and strategy.
Slide 5 – Human Psyche System Terminology #2
This Slide shows – When each stage was world leader – Together with the approximate period when each stage is dominant in the life of highly evolved persons today.
Slide 6 – Human Psyche System World Leadership and Transformation Eras
This slide reminds you to refer back to the three slides I gave you in Part 1 showing the rise and fall of Human Psyche System stages in world leadership and the great leadership transition periods of history.
Slide 7 – Individual Psyche Stage Evolution Through Life
This diagram symbolizes the rise and fall of psyche stage dominance through the life of a highly evolved person in our culture. The peaks represent approximate periods when a person’s conscious and unconscious are aligned in the same stage.
It is normal that we enter each stage first in our conscious, intellectual life and later become aware consciously of our unconscious, emotional life. For some time after we first enter a new stage, we are split humans – Our conscious becoming dominant in the new stage and our emotions remaining dominant in an earlier stage. Great confusion, turmoil and troublesome behavior can result. Split people are problems – For example, fundamentalist Terrorists tend to be split between Stage C emotions and Stage D intellect and emotions.
The Key idea is – If you understand the dominant psyche stage patterns of individuals and groups you can know how to lead, manage and organize them for maximum performance consistent with their stage patterns, Not Yours. This is a foundation for our leadership work – You cannot lead anyone without knowing who you are and who others are in their psyche stage evolution. This is what Rudolf Steiner said – Only those who understand life can become a truly practical persons.
Slide 8 – Inter-Stage Transition & Intra-Stage Development
This slide diagrams the human psyche’s bi-polar evolution process through a complete cycle. It includes the 3 part process of discontinuous transformation into a given stage (called Inter-Stage Transition) and the 3 part process of development within a given stage (called Intra-Stage development). The vertical scale represents the psyche’s rate of evolutionary change and the horizontal scale represents the parts of the psyche evolution process.
The diagram starts at Part 1 of an Inter-Stage transition from a given stage into a new stage. The rate of change and the degree of openness to transition are rapidly rising. The psyche system reaches its “Point-of-No-Return” – The discontinuous transition cannot be stopped. Part 2 represents the point of discontinuity – The point of the leap to the new stage when the rate of change peaks. Part 3 represents the completion of the transition into the new stage – The rate of change and the openness to change rapidly decrease. At the end of Part 3 the human psyche at its most stable point in the whole cycle – It behaves almost as a linear system. At this point the person or the organization is most certain that its new pattern of life and work is exactly correct – They are “True Believers” in the new stage.
Next comes the quasi-linear Intra-Stage development period. It is important to note that the development period is many times longer than the relatively short transformation periods. For convenience I have condensed the diagram’s horizontal scale for Intra-Stage Development. Part 1 of development has very low rate of evolution and openness to change – The new stage pattern of life and work meets all needs. During Part 2 of development there is a gradual and uneven increase in the rate of psyche evolution and openness to change – The then dominant stage requires some innovations to meet life needs, but they can be handled by fix-ups within the current stage. During Part 3 of development the current psyche stage begins to face situations where it is no longer effective – Of course this is strongly denied. This marks the beginning of non-linear increase of rate of change and openness to change. At the end point of Part 3 Development the psyche begins its process of dis-association with the current stage and begins its pre-transition state of chaos as it begins to align with the next stage.
The human psyche evolution cycle I have described in some detail is consistent with the general outline Laszlo gave in his speech discussing how living systems transform.
Slide 9 – Two Paths of Human Psyche Evolution
We need to know there are two parallel paths in the story of Human Psyche System evolution – The individual evolution path and the collective evolution path. The first path is our individual psyche evolution as a person. In classical biology individual evolution is called Ontogeny. The other path is human history, or the collective psyche evolution of mankind as a species. In classical biology evolution of the species is called Phylogeny.
A classical biology principle states – Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Applying this biological principle to human life means that individual evolution in its life retraces the collective evolution of mankind. Applying it to human psyche evolution means that individual psyche stages evolve through same stages that collective mankind has evolved through in history. So far the classical recapitulation principle is OK.
According to this classical Recapitulation principle the individual follows the collective in evolution. And it implies that an individual cannot evolve to a stage beyond the most advanced stage of the collective. It implies that new psyche stages must always appear first in the collective and then in the individual. This is not OK. Both these implications are not valid. Unfortunately many persons and groups seem to believe the collective is the driver of evolution that the individual must follow. Living System Psychology holds just the opposite, that the individual leads human evolution, not the collective. Why?
Classical Recapitulation of biology is a linear principle, not a Living System principle. Therefore, it makes no provision for an individual to transcend beyond the most advanced psyche stage of the collective. Recall that linear systems cannot self-transcend. But we know that Transcendence is exactly what happens to catalyze world human transformations beyond the most advanced stage that previously existed. Therefore, there are serious problems with Classical Recapitulation. Let’s summarize them.
The first problem is that classical principle clearly gives the impression that the collective leads the evolution of individual life – Meaning that we as individuals are always following, or recapitulating what came before in the collective. This impression is wrong. We need to have a Living System principle that puts individual psyche evolution in the leading role. The classical principle is valid only for individual psyche evolution up to the most advanced stage of the collective.
The second problem is that the classical principle is based on linear system science and therefore cannot deal with how a new psyche stage emerges from within the psyche itself beyond what previously existed. Linear system science is very poor at dealing with “origins” of anything – It does not recognize transcendence except through some external force.
Based on my interpretation of emerging Living System science, I use an Extended Principle of Recapitulation for human psyche evolution that solves both problems. The Extended Principle goes like this:
- Individual psyche stage evolution does appear to recapitulate collective stage
evolution, but only up to the collective’s most evolved stage;
- Individual psyche stage evolution for some leading-edge individuals can Transcend existing collective evolution to a new stage beyond existing collective
evolution and in this way catalyze and eventually lead collective evolution into a
new collective psyche stage that did not previously exist for the collective; Therefore:
- Individual psyche stage Transcendence is “Morphogenic” for (gives form to) the
collective’s next stage, that did not previously exist in the collective; and thus
- Individual psyche evolution is the leading force and collective psyche evolution is the eventual result, not the cause of human psyche evolution; but
- Collective psyche stages do play important guiding and supporting roles for
individuals who are less evolved than the collectives in which they are embedded.
The Living System Extended Principle of Recapitulation solves the problem by placing the transcending individual in the primary leadership position and bridges the gap from what now exists to a new stage as a natural process flowing from an underlying Morphic Field deep within the unconscious of the human psyche. “Discontinuous Transcendence by Individuals” is the key – It is a natural property of Living Systems – It is impossible for linear machine systems.
The Extended Principle explains what is happening in today’s Mega-Force 1.Individuals are leading today’s world human transformation. Classical recapitulation does not recognize emergent transcendence and therefore cannot explain what is happening.
There are many individuals and groups today trying to transform the collective mass as the primary means to improve human life and work. Unfortunately most of them have it backwards – The proper approach to improving human life and work is through catalyzing leading-edge individuals capable of transcending so they can then assist others to repeat this process with other individuals and eventually their organizations. That is the process I am using in this program.
Slide 10 – Human Psyche – World’s Most Fundamental Living System
The basic concept underlying Living System Psychology is:
The Human Psyche System is the world’s most fundamental Living System –
Everything in our life results from it.
The psyche’s Phase, Cycle and Stage patterns that we develop and explain in the rest of Part 2 are the underlying “Morphic Fields” for our life and affairs. They underlie the surface differences between individuals and collectives – They are underlying life templates we all use to live and work. Therefore – All that happens individually and collectively are results of underlying psyche stage patterns. They are the real causes of external observable events in our lives and work.
As I proceed to tell the story of how we have evolved up to the stage of Mega-Force 1 - Our current transformation to Living System life and work – I suggest you continue to refer back to Slides 35 through 43. They remind you of the definitions and the structure of Living System Psychology that we are using in our discussions.
End of Part 2 – 3
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