Free Will, the Self and Quantum Theory

In the 1970s, the neurologist Benjamin Libet sought to determine the precise timing between conscious awareness of a voluntary decision and electrical activity in the brain.ⁱ

Common sense normally expects that the awareness of a decision to act precedes the neural activity allowing the action itself. The very surprising result of Libet’s experiments is that it seems to be the opposite…

These experiments, which are now famous, involved the observation of the temporal link between the subjective sensation associated with the decisional « threshold » (the moment of « awareness » of the decision) and the neural activity associated with the motor movements that are supposed to follow this decision.

The results of Libet’s experiments, which are highly paradoxical and have been confirmed many times, have been commented on by neuroscientists, mostly as a confirmation of the internal autonomy of the brain with respect to consciousness, and subsequently as a confirmation of the absence of free will…

These results can be summarized as follows: unconscious cerebral events precede by a time that can vary from several tenths of a second to several seconds, the conscious sensation of having made a voluntary decision to perform a motor action (for example, pressing a button)ⁱⁱ.

These « unconscious brain events » are observable in the form of electrical potentials, called « readiness potentials » or « premotor potentials ». These electrical potentials measure the activity of the motor cortex and of the brain region involved in the preparation of voluntary muscle movements.

For most commentators, Libet’s experiments confirm the absence of any human free will, because, according to them, they highlight the fact that the brain itself autonomously produces « preparatory potentials » for motor movement before the decision to act reaches consciousness.

Everything happens, therefore, as if the « consciousness of acting » were a simple « illusion », consecutive to the decision taken unconsciously by the brain itself, independently of any conscious involvement of the subjectⁱⁱⁱ.

In other words, unconscious neurological processes would first provoke the motor act (its preparation and initialization) and then the « conscious » sensation in the subject of having taken the decision to act, by his own (« conscious ») will.

The general conclusion drawn by Libet from these observations is that brain processes determine decisions, which are then perceived as subjective by the brain through the phenomenon of consciousness.

Libet does, however, consider the notion of a veto – the ability of « consciousness » to block an act that is being prepared or even already committed – as possible. This would be the only space of free will or « free will » that remains at the disposal of « consciousness », that of blocking the action, always possibly possible in the very short time (a few hundred milliseconds) that takes place between the subjective perception of the decision and the execution of the act itself.

The deterministic interpretation of Libet’s findings, culminating in the radical questioning of the idea of free will, is currently largely predominant among neuroscientists and biologists. Biologist Anthony Cashmore summarizes the majority thinking by saying that belief in free will « is nothing less than a continuation of belief in vitalism »^iv.

There are some skeptics, however, who still resist.

Some question the implicit assumption that decisions must be initiated by consciousness in order to be considered « free ». The idea is that ultimately free will is not related to consciousness but only to « control », and that one could assume the existence of a « pre-conscious free will « .^v

Others consider that the role of the experimental context should not be neglected, in particular the conscious choice, made by the subjects undergoing the experiments, to pay special attention to bodily signals which usually remain subconscious.

On the other hand, it must be emphasized, as Alexander Wendt does, that no one really knows what « readiness potentials » are, or how they can be the cause of a behavior^vi. For example, they might only serve to present the occurrence of a choice (rather than embodying the choice itself), which would amount to saving the idea of free will.

Alexander Wendt believes that quantum perspectives potentially renew the debate around Libet’s experiments, but that precisely they have never been considered for their interpretation until now.
However, he mentions Roger Penrose’s opinion that these results show the inadequacy of the classical conception of time. Penrose suggests that Libet’s results could be explained by a kind of « retro-causation » or « advanced action » that is allowed by quantum theory.^vii

For his part, Henry Stapp establishes a link between the Libet experiments and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox on the question of non-locality. Stuart Hameroff, based on his own theory of the quantum brain, believes that « non-local temporality and the backward time referral of quantum information [advanced action] can provide real-time conscious control of a voluntary action ».^viii

The most argued criticism of Libet’s results on the basis of quantum theories is that of Fred Alan Wolf^ix who also relies on the quantum notion of temporal non-locality. But he adds considerations related to the evolutionary advantage. Being able to sense an impending experience has an obvious value in terms of survival chances in case of danger, especially if this pre-awareness capacity allows to gain more than half a second, without waiting for full consciousness to be acquired.
Furthermore, he proposes the image of the brain as « a giant delayed choice machine ».
Finally, Wolf shows that the time-symmetric quantum perspective can explain an important anomaly in Libet’s experiment: the subjective anti-dating. In fact, not only does the quantum perspective account for it, but it predicts it.

Concluding his study on this question, Alexander Wendt clearly states his rejection of deterministic and materialistic theories: « So my point is not that human behavior cannot be made more predictable – more ‘classical’ – through coercion, discipline, or incentives, but rather that no matter how successful such schemes are, there is a spontaneous vital force in the human being that fundamentally eludes causal determination »^x.

Would Wendt demonstrate « vitalism »?
I would opt for the belief in an irreducible entity, present in the depths of the human being.
By consulting the multi-millennial traditions of humanity, one can note the multiple ways in which one has given an account, since the dawn of humanity, of this irreducible entity, constitutive of our deepest being, this absolute, secret, hidden, abyssal entity, which stands in the depths of the being, and which is infinitely more original than what we call the « me », or the « consciousness ».

The Veda calls it ātman, the Hebrew Bible uses several words, which have their own nuances, נִשְׁמַת (neshmah), נֶפֶשׁ (néfèsh), רוּחַ (rouaḥ), the Greeks speak of νοῦς (noûs) and ψυχή (psyche).

To make an image, we could call it the « self », the « soul », or the « fine point of the spirit ». The word is not the most important thing, it is the idea itself that is important, – the idea that all cultures have known how to express it in their own way, by means of words that have all in some way their own genius.

Only modern science, positivist, causalist (but also with a strong materialist and determinist tendency) has not only no word but no conception of this « entity », by nature immaterial (thus obviously escaping EEG, fMRI, PET Scan, TMS…), and above all conceptually elusive in the frame of reference of science, namely the experimental and rationalist epistemology.

I would only like, in the framework of this short article, to indicate briefly, but forcefully, that the results of Libet’s experiment could perfectly well be interpreted in a way that is radically opposed to the conventional interpretation (causalist, materialist, physicalist… and determinist).

Let us assume for a moment, for the purpose of establishing my hypothesis, that:

Far below the immense, abysmal depths of consciousness, far beyond even that underlying continent, the Unconscious, which Sigmund Freud and C.-G. Jung, the first explorers, the first cartographers, only scratched the surface of, there exists, for each of us, an entity that I will call « ι » (the Greek iota).

Why this name?

This entity, named » ι « , summarizes in a way a great number of concepts already consecrated by the tradition.
A few expressions can be quoted, chosen in their multiplicity: scintilla animae (« spark of the soul »), scintilla conscientiae (« spark of the conscience »)^xi, « fine point of the soul » (Teresa of Avila), « living flame » or even « hair » (John of the Cross)^xii.

In De Veritate, Thomas Aquinas states: « Just as the spark is the purest thing in fire and the highest thing in the judgment of the conscience ».^xiii

Master Eckhart also uses the image of the spark, but to refine it by reducing it to freedom itself, freedom seen as an absolutely one and simple entity:
« This little stronghold of the soul, I said it was a spark, but now I say this: it is free of all names, devoid of all forms, absolutely uncluttered and free, as God is uncluttered and free in himself. He is as absolutely one and simple as God is one and simple. »

Francis de Sales speaks of « the point of the spirit », « the depth of the soul » or « the high region of the spirit ».

To gather this bundle of approaches, in a simple and unique image, I propose to concentrate them in this » ι « , this Greek iota. Totally immaterial, infinitely elusive, » ι » is the initial spark that makes you yourself, and not another. It is the first germ around which the successive layers of consciousness and being have slowly accumulated, since conception, and which have not ceased, day after day, to grow, to unfold, to become more complex by epigenesis. This » ι » is the tiny seed, resisting to all the storms, to all the winds, to all the storms, and which, stubborn, trusting, ineradicable, pushes at every moment in the solitude of its own I-ness. This » ι » remains , as I remain. The » ι » remains, but in order to leave, to fly towards the top, towards the elsewhere, towards the absolutely-other.

Let us consider now the relation between the » ι « , the consciousness and the (neuronal) brain.

The » ι » holds under its calm glance the whole of the abysses of the unconscious, just like the lapping of the consciousness. The » ι » is alive, the very spark of the life. The » ι » lives and wants, freely. There is no one freer than him. What « ι » really wants, God also wants, I would even say. It is their very alliance.

What happens then in a human brain, when the « ι » of such and such a particular person, starts to « want », either to escape in urgency from a hungry tiger, or to dedicate himself to some distant goal, or to participate in a neurological experiment of the good professor Libet?

Well, the « ι » enters in quantum resonance (in a non-local and intricate way) with the whole of the receptors of its « body » (for example the micro-tubules whose putative role in the emergence of consciousness we owe to Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff).
This results in a rapid mobilization of the « preparation potentials », the premotor potentials acting on the motor cortex, and a parallel mobilization of the « consciousness » initiating centers (there are several of them, which function in parallel, but which are activated in conscious mode only when necessary, often remaining in subconscious mode, and most of the time in unconscious mode)

Here is my provisional interpretation of Libet’s experiments: the fact that the activation of the preparatory potentials precedes by 350ms the sensation of « awareness » has no meaning in relation to the hidden, undetectable, but implacably prevalent presence of the « ι ».

The » ι » is there. It watches. It wants. It lives. It always lives.

All the rest, the microtubules, the neurons, the cortex, the self, the consciousness, are simply its devoted, more or less obedient, skillful or sleepy, servants.

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iBenjamin Libet (1985), « Unconscious Cerebral Initiative and the Role of Conscious Will in Voluntary Action », The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8(4), 529-566. Benjamin Libet (2004), Mind Time, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

iiBenjamin Libet found that the readiness potential appears 350-400ms before the awareness of the intention to act and 550ms before the initiation of the act itself.

iiiCf. Daniel Wegner (2002). The Illusion of Conscious Will, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

ivQuoted by Sven Walter, « Willusionism, Epiphenomenalism and the Feeling of the Conscious Will », Synthese, 191(10), 2215-2238

vCf. Alexander Wendt. Quantum Mind and Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 186, Note 59.

viAlexander Wendt. Quantum Mind and Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 186

viiRoger Penrose (1994), Shadows of the Mind : A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford University Press, p. 383-390

viiiStuart Hameroff, « How Quantum Brain Biology Can Rescue Conscious Free Will », Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 6, article 93, p. 14, quoted buy Alexander Wendt. Quantum Mind and Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 187

ixFred Alan Wolf (1998), « The Timing of Conscious Experience », Journal of Scientific Exploration, 12(4), 511-542

xAlexander Wendt. Quantum Mind and Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 188

xiA term coined by Jerome of Stridon

xii« The hair is the will of the soul ». John of the Cross. Spiritual Canticle B, 30,9

xiiiThomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 17, art. 2, ad. 3

The Quantum Theory of Proto-Consciousness: a Critique and some Perspectives

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Paramecia are organisms composed of a single cell. They can swim, find food, mate, reproduce, remember their past experiences, derive patterns of behavior, and thus « learn », – all this without having a nervous system, having neither neurons nor synapses. How are such behaviors requiring a form of consciousness and even intelligence possible in a single-cell organism without neural networks?

The question is important because it opens new perspectives on the nature of « consciousness ». Indeed, one could infer from these observations that part of our own cognitive capacities are not of neuronal origin, but are based on other, more fundamental, biological phenomena below the level of neural networks.

According to the hypothesis of Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penroseⁱ, the ability to learn from single-cell organisms and the emergence of elementary forms of consciousness within our own neuronal cells could originate in the microtubules that form their cytoskeleton, at the level of the dendrites and the cell body (soma).

The microtubules would be the place where tiny moments of « proto-consciousness » hatch, – tiny moments but constantly repeated, millions of times a second, and whose aggregation and integration at a higher level by the neural networks would constitute the « consciousness » itself.

One could also assume that these moments of « proto-consciousness » that constantly emerge in the billions of microtubules of the dendrites of each of our neurons form not only the source of consciousness but also the basis of our unconscious (or at least of its biological substrate).

It has been shown that the brain waves detected by electroencephalography (EEG) actually derive from the deep vibrations that are produced at the level of the microtubules composing the cytoskeleton of the dendrites and the cell bodies of the neurons.

Neuronal membrane activities can also resonate throughout the various regions of the brain, depending on gamma wave frequencies that can range from 30 to 90 Hz.ⁱⁱ

The vibratory phenomena that are initiated within the microtubules (more precisely at the level of the « tubulins » of which they are composed) modify the reactions and action potentials of neurons and synapses. They participate in the initial emergence of neurobiological processes leading to consciousness.

However, these resonance phenomena, considered from the point of view of their profound nature, are essentially quantum in nature, according to the thesis presented by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroffⁱⁱⁱ.

The molecules of the membranes of neuronal cells possess a dipolar moment and behave like oscillators with excitation quanta. Moreover, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, they can give rise to quantum entanglement phenomena linking and correlating in this way the particles of the microtubules of several adjacent neurons, allowing an increasing integration of networks at the neuronal scale.

Hameroff and Penrose assert that proto-consciousness events are thus somehow the result of « quantum computations » performed in the microtubules (this term ‘quantum computation’ is associated with the image of the microtubule as a quantum computer). The results of these ‘calculations’ are ‘objectified’ after their quantum ‘reduction’ (hence the term ‘objective reduction’, or Diósi-Penrose’s ‘Objective Reduction’, noted O.R., to qualify this theory).

But does it make sense to speak of ‘moments of proto-consciousness’? Isn’t consciousness precisely first of all the feeling of a unity subsuming a whole, a whole made of myriads of continuously integrated possibilities?

Consciousness is described by these theorists of quantum neurology as a sequence of discontinuous micro-moments, quanta of emerging consciousness.

However, consciousness is also defined, macroscopically, as a presence to oneself, as an intuition of the reality of the self, as an ability to make choices, to have a memory founding the persistence of the feeling of the self, and as ‘thought’, capable of preparing and projecting the expression of a will.

Are the two positions, that of the succession of discontinuous, quantum, proto-consciousness moments and that of the unitive consciousness of the Self, compatible?

The Sarvāstivāda school, one of the major currents of ancient Buddhism, goes in this direction, since it affirms that 6,480,000 « moments » of consciousness occur in 24 hours, that is, a micro-salve of consciousness every 13.3 ms (frequency of 75 Hz). Other Buddhist schools describe the appearance of a thought every 20ms (50 Hz)^iv.

Consciousness would thus consist of a succession of discontinuous events, synchronizing different parts of the brain, according to various frequencies.

From a philosophical point of view, we can distinguish three main classes of theories of the origin and place of consciousness in the universe, as Penrose and Hameroff do:

A. Consciousness is not an independent phenomenon, but appears as a natural, evolutionary consequence of the biological adaptation of the brain and nervous system. According to this view, prevalent in science, consciousness emerges as a property of complex biological combinations, and as an epiphenomenon, a side effect, without independent existence. It is therefore fundamentally illusory, that is, it constructs its own reality rather than actually perceiving it. It may have arisen spontaneously, and then be preserved because it brings a comparative advantage to the species that benefit from it. In this view, consciousness is not an intrinsic characteristic of the universe, but results from a simple chance of evolution.

B. Consciousness is a separate phenomenon, it is distinct from the physical world, not controlled by it, and it has always been present in the universe. Plato’s idealism, Descartes’ dualism, religious views and other spiritual approaches posit that consciousness has always been present in the universe, as the support of being, as a creative entity, or as an attribute of an omnipresent « God ». In this view consciousness can causally influence physical matter and human behavior but has no (yet) scientific basis. In another approach ‘panpsychism’ attributes a form of consciousness to matter, but without scientific identity or causal influence. Idealism asserts that consciousness is all that exists, the material world (and science) being only an illusion. In this view, consciousness is outside and beyond the cognitive capacities of ‘scientists’ (but not of philosophers, mystics or poets).

C. Consciousness results from distinct physical events, which have always existed in the universe, and which have always given rise to forms of ‘proto-consciousness’, resulting from precise physical laws, but which are not yet fully understood. Biology has evolved to take advantage of these events by ‘orchestrating’ them and coupling them with neural activity. The result is ‘moments’ of consciousness, capable of bringing out ‘meaning’. These events of consciousness are also carriers of ‘cognition’, and thus capable of causally controlling behaviour. These moments are associated with the reduction of quantum states. This position was presented in a general way by A.N. Whitehead^v and is now explicitly defended in the theory of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, which they call the « Orch O.R. » theory (acronym for « orchestrated objective reduction »).

The three main classes of theory on consciousness that have just been described can be summarized as follows:

A. Science/Materialism. Consciousness plays no distinct role, not independent of matter.

B. Dualism/Spirituality. Consciousness remains beyond the cognitive capacities of science.

C. Science/Consciousness. Consciousness in fact plays an essential role in physical laws, although this role is not (yet) elucidated.

One could add a theory D, I would suggest, which would take up some salient aspects of the three previous theories, but to derive an original synthesis from them, by finding a way to eliminate the apparently dire incompatibilities that seem to radically distance them from each other.

Personally, this seems to me to be the most promising path for the future.

The Orch O.R. theory represents a first step towards the integration of the theories A, B and C.

It tries to explain how consciousness can emerge from what Penrose and Hameroff call neuronal ‘computation’.

But how can proto-consciousness events arise spontaneously from a computational complexity synchronized by successive ‘flashes’, and cooperatively bringing together diverse regions of the brain?

The observation shows that gamma-wave EEGs (above 30 Hz) are the best correlate of consciousness events, in that they denote synchronicity with the integrated potentials of dendrites and neuronal cell bodies.

Microtubule Associated Proteins (MAPs) interconnect the microtubules of neuronal cells in recursive networks. They facilitate the « integration » of dendrite and soma activity of these cells.

The Orch OR theory innovates by positing that this complex integration, in time and space, is in fact made possible by quantum entanglement phenomena of the tubulin particles of microtubules belonging to adjacent neurons.

Through these quantum entanglement phenomena, dendrite networks thus collectively integrate their own computational capabilities. This integration is not deterministic, passive. It involves complex computational treatments that use lateral connections between neurons and the differentiated polarization synchronization of their membranes.

The neurons connected by their dendrites synchronize their local field potentials (LFPs) during the integration phase, but they do not necessarily synchronize their electrical discharges in the axons afterwards. Other factors are therefore at work.

It can be observed that molecules used in anesthesia selectively ‘erase’ consciousness by associating with specific sites in the post-synaptic dendrites and soma.

What is established is that dendritic and somatic integration is thus closely related to consciousness, and it is this integration that is at the origin of the electric bursts of the axons that ‘convey’ the carrier processes of ‘proto-consciousness’, which will eventually be integrated by the brain to allow ‘conscious’ control of behavior.

Descartes considered the pineal gland as the possible seat of consciousness; Penrose and Hameroff believe that this seat is in fact delocalized in the microtubules.

This theory also has the advantage of explaining how intracellular processing in the cyto-skeletons of unicellular organisms is the means by which they can have cognitive functions even when they are devoid of synapses.

However, this theory does not explain at all the nature of « proto-consciousness ». It only describes the conjunction of two phenomena, the reduction of quantum states linking by entanglement sets of microtubules, and the appearance of supposed moments of proto-consciousness.

But the causal relationship between « orchestrated objective reduction » and proto-consciousness is not proven. There is no evidence of the « production » of proto-consciousness during this « reduction ».

It could just as well be that there is a « transmission » of proto-consciousness elements, coming from a sphere other than material.

This is where theory D seems to me to be able to come to the rescue, by proposing an active synthesis between the theories A, B and C.

As theory B posits, we can consider consciousness as a pre-existing « web » in the entire universe, surrounding matter on all sides.

Universal consciousness can be represented as a « web » of connected points of existence, of connected quanta of consciousness.

Matter, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a « web » of energetic existence points.

These various kinds of existences (spiritual/conscious and material/energetic) have in common the fact of « being ».

The reality of « being » would then be their fundamental basis, their common « ontic » essence, and consequently also the framework of their potential mutual interactions.

In some cases, for example during the instantaneous change of state (such as during the quantum reduction occurring in the microtubules of neuronal cells), the layers of consciousness and matter interact within what I would call a « qubit of existence ».

This qubit would not be unrelated to certain fundamental constants, such as Planck’s constant, or to the dimensionless relationships that exist between the fundamental phenomena of the universe (such as the relationship between the influence of universal gravitation and electromagnetic fields in all parts of the universe).

In the qubit of existence, or qubit ontic, two forms of being coexist, the « being » based on energy associated with consciousness or spirit, and the « being » based on energy associated with matter.

These two forms of energy, which are probably also two phases of the same more fundamental and even more original energy, can interact or resonate under certain conditions.

Since their common point is « being », according to the two energetic modalities mentioned, one material, the other spiritual, it is not unimaginable to suppose that these two energetic modalities can intertwine with each other.

We know Einstein’s famous formula, E=MC², where E is energy, M is mass and c is the speed of light. This formula represents a kind of quintessential result of hard science.

I would like to propose a comparable formula, which would be an attempt by soft science to transcend the separations of worlds:

E=M©²

E here represents spiritual energy. M stands for spiritual ‘substance’, i.e. consciousness. And the © sign represents the « speed », the « wind », the « breath » of the Spirit.

The Spirit, which moves at speed ©, creates a sheet or field of consciousness that envelops the universe in its smallest crevices and farthest confines.

The speed © is much greater than the speed of light, c, which does not exceed 300.000 km/s.

The speed © may even be infinite. We know at least experimentally that we can think much faster than the speed of light. Thus a metaphor can instantly bring two worldviews as far apart as one wants to go. … In a flash, the mind of man can link the barking little dog and the Great Dog star, or Canis Major constellation, which is 25,000 light years away from the solar system…

If we continue the analogy, a qubit of primordial energy can be modulated, at any point in the Universe, into a spiritual qubit and a material qubit, according to several phases, combining in various proportions, and which can occasionally enter into resonance, as has been suggested.

The energetic (spirit/matter) vibrations are the means of coupling the two material and spiritual worlds through their « ontic » vibrations (the vibrations associated with their way of « being »).

The place where this coupling takes place is, for example, in the microtubules which concentrate an extraordinary density of active molecules, and which are, through the resonant forces of Van der Waals, intertwined.

The appearance of consciousness within the microtubules would therefore not be the result of a local production of proto-consciousness, initiated by quantum reduction, as Penrose and Hameroff posit.

It would be the result of a transmission between the pre-existing world of consciousness and the material world, here interfaced at the microtubule level.

This is the hypothesis known as the theory of transmission, which was formulated by William James in 1898^vi.

« The brain is represented as a transmissive organ. (…) Matter is not that which produces Consciousness, but that which limits it, and confines its intensity within certain limits: material organization does not construct consciousness out of arrangements of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the sphere which it permits. (…) One’s finite mundane consciousness would be an extract from one’s larger, truer personality, the latter having even now some sort of reality behind the scenes. One’s brain would also leave effects upon the part remaining behind the veil; for when a thing is torn, both fragments feel the operation. »^vii

The brain can then be represented as an organ of transmission.
It can be argued that Matter is not what produces Consciousness, but what limits it, and what confines its intensity within certain limits. Material organization does not construct Consciousness from arrangements of atoms, but reduces its manifestation to the sphere it constructs. Everyone’s consciousness, finite, common, would only be an extract of a greater consciousness, of a truer nature, which would possess a kind of reality behind the scene. Our brain could produce effects, leave traces, on this greater level of consciousness that remains behind the veil.

After death, this greater consciousness would keep alive theses traces, left over. For when something is torn, both fragments undergo the operation.
The consciousness that we have when we are awake, and which we renounce when we sleep or die, is only one of the faces, one of the phases of a much larger consciousness to which we are permanently linked (for example through quantum reduction of microtubules…).

This greater, much larger consciousness is still ours. Its other name is the “Self”.

It extends our consciousness from here below, and is perhaps also the origin of it. It feeds on our earthly consciousness, and in return feeds us also, permanently, subliminally, or sometimes, illuminatingly.

It should not be confused with an infinite ‘ocean’ of undifferentiated consciousness in which we are only ‘dead swimmers’ following its course ‘to other nebulae’^viii.

Mind can thus interfere with matter in the form of waves or shocks of proto-consciousness, on the occasion of ‘quantum reduction’.

What is the metaphor of this « reduction »?

I would gladly argue that the spiritual influences the so-called « real » world by means of the « reduction » of the possible, and precisely its « reduction » to the real, the « reduction » of the potential to the actual.

A « reduction » represents a certain closing of local quantum indeterminism, but also the infinitely rapid opening of an immense field of new potentialities, to come.

_____

iStuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 31, December 2019, Pages 86-103

ii « The best measurable correlate of consciousness through modern science is gamma synchrony electro-encephalography (EEG), 30 to 90Hz coherent neuronal membrane activities occurring across various synchronized brain regions ». Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 31, December 2019, Page 41

iiiStuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 31, December 2019, Pages 86-103

ivA. von Rospatt. The Buddhist doctrine of Momentariness : a Survey of of of the origins and early phase of this doctrine up to Vasubandha. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1995

vA.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929. Adventures of Ideas, 1933.

viWilliam James. Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.Ed. by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1898.

viiWilliam James. Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.Ed. by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1898.

viiiGuillaume Apollinaire. The Song of the Unloved

The Power of the Past and the Seed of the Future

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The Rig Veda is the most ancient source from which to draw in an attempt to understand the state of the first conceptual representations of humanity by itself, more than four millennia ago. Religion and society, then, were in an infancy that did not exclude a profound wisdom, more original than what Greek and Roman antiquity were able to conceive later, and of which the Hebrew wisdom itself was a later heir.

The memory of the Veda, long unwritten and transmitted orally for thousands of years by pure thinkers and rigorous ascetics, bears witness to an intellectual and moral state of humanity in an age much earlier than the time of Abraham. When this prophet left Ur in Chaldea, around 1200 B.C., for his exile to the south, many centuries had already nourished the valleys of the Oxus and watered the Indus basin. Several millennia before him, time had sedimented layers of human memory, ever deeper. The Vedic priests celebrated the idea of a unique and universal deity long before the « monotheisms ». Melchisedec himself, the oldest prophetic figure in the Bible, is a newcomer, if we place him in the obscure sequence of times that preceded him.

This observation must be taken into account if we want to put an end to the drama of exceptions and the drifts of history, and understand what humanity as a whole carries within it, since the beginning.

Homo sapiens has always been possessed by multiple intuitions, immanent, of the Divine, and even, for some individuals of this species, by singular ‘transcendent’ visions that they have sometimes been able to share and transmit. We must try to grasp these intuitions and visions today, by questioning what remains of their memory, if we want to draw prospective lines towards the distant future that is looming in the dark shadow of the future.

The Hebrew Bible is a fairly recent document, and its price should not make us forget its relative youth. Its age goes back at most to a thousand years before our era. In contrast, the Veda is one or even two millennia older. This seniority, in fact rather short, should certainly not make us forget that it is itself based on much more remote memories, of which the Chauvet cave (~30 000 years) is only a simple marker, pointing out the mystery of the very origins of the Homo genus, as for the specific nature of its « consciousness ».

This is why it is important to consider what remains of the memory of the Veda, in order to try to draw more general lessons from it, and to try to understand the unity of the human adventure, in order to foresee its possible evolutions – so much so that the past is one of the forms in power of the future.

To illustrate this point, I would like to propose here a brief review of some of the symbols and paradigms of the Veda, to weigh and consider their potential universality.

Butter, oil and sacred anointings.

In those ancient times, melted butter (ghṛita) alone represented a kind of cosmic miracle. It embodied the cosmic alliance of the sun, nature and life: the sun, the source of all life in nature, makes the grass grow, which feeds the cow, which exudes its intimate juice, the milk, which becomes butter by the action of man (the churning), and finally comes to flow freely as sôma on the altar of the sacrifice to mingle with the sacred fire, and nourish the flame, engender light, and spread the odor capable of rising to the heavens, concluding the cycle. A simple and profound ceremony, originating in the mists of time, and already possessing the vision of the universal cohesion between the divine, the cosmos and the human.

« From the ocean, the wave of honey arose, with the sôma, it took on the form of ambrosia. This is the secret name of the Butter, language of the Gods, navel of the immortal. (…) Arranged in three parts, the Gods discovered in the cow the Butter that the Paṇi had hidden. Indra begat one of these parts, the Sun the second, the third was extracted from the sage, and prepared by rite. (…) They spring from the ocean of the Spirit, these flows of Butter a hundred times enclosed, invisible to the enemy. I consider them, the golden rod is in their midst (…) They leap before Agni, beautiful and smiling like young women at the rendezvous; the flows of Butter caress the flaming logs, the Fire welcomes them, satisfied. « ⁱ

If one finds in Butter connotations too domestic to be able to bear the presence of the sacred, let it be thought that the Priests, the Prophets and the Kings of Israel, for example, were not afraid to be anointed with a sacred oil, Shemen Hamish’hah, a « chrism », a maximum concentration of meaning, where the product of the Cosmos, the work of men, and the life-giving power of the God magically converge.

Hair and divine links

Hair is one of the oldest metaphors that the human brain has ever conceived. It is also a metonymy. The hair is on the head, on top of the man, above his very thoughts, links also with the divine sphere (this is why the Jews cover themselves with the yarmulke). But the hair also covers the lower abdomen, and announces the deep transformation of the body, for life, love and generation. Finally, the fertile earth itself is covered with a kind of hair when the harvest is coming. Here again, the ancient genius combines in a single image, the Divine, Man and Nature.

A hymn in the Veda combines these images in a single formula:

« Make the grass grow on these three surfaces, O Indra, the Father’s head, and the field there, and my belly! This Field over here, which is ours, and my body here, and the Father’s head, make it all hairy! »ⁱⁱ

But the hair has other connotations as well, which go further than mere metonymic circulation. The hair in the Veda also serves as an image to describe the action of God himself. It is one of the metaphors that allow to qualify him indirectly, as, much later, other monotheistic religions will do, choosing his power, his mercy, or his clemency.

« The Hairy One carries the Fire, the Hairy One carries the Soma, the Hairy One carries the worlds. The Hairy One carries all that is seen from heaven. The Hairy One is called Light. »ⁱⁱⁱ

The Word, divinized.

More than five thousand years ago, the Word was already considered by the Veda as having a life of « her » own, of divine essence. The Word is a « Person, » says the Veda. The Word (vāc) is the very essence of the Veda.

« More than one who sees has not seen the Word. More than one who hears has not heard it. To this one She has opened Her body as to her husband a loving wife in rich attire. « ^iv

Is this not a foreshadowing, two thousand years earlier, of the Psalms of David which personify Wisdom as a figure, divine and « feminine », associated as a goddess with the unique God?

Thought, image of freedom

In the Veda, Thought (manas) is one of the most powerful metaphors that man has ever conceived for the essence of the Divine. Many other religions, millennia later, also celebrated the divine « Thought » and sought to define certain attributes of « her ». But, in the Veda, this original intuition, developed in all its emergent force, confirms Man in the idea that his own thought, his own faculty of thinking, has always been and remains in power the source of a radical astonishment, and the intimate certainty of a primary freedom.

« She in whom prayers, melodies and formulas rest, like the grapes at the hub of the chariot, she in whom all the reflection of creatures is woven, the Thought: may what She conceives be propitious to me! »^v

The Infinite, so old and always young…

The idea of an « infinite », « hidden » God, on whom everything rests, was conceived by Man long before Abraham or Moses. The Veda attests that this idea was already celebrated millennia before these famous figures.

« Manifest, he is hidden. Ancient is his name. Vast is his concept. All this universe is based on him. On him rests all that moves and breathes (…) The Infinite is extended in many directions, the Infinite and the finite have common borders. The Guardian of the Vault of Heaven travels through them, separating them, he who knows what is past and what is to come. (…) Desireless, wise, immortal, self-born, satiated with vital sap, suffering no lack – he does not fear death who has recognized the wise Ātman, unaged, ever young. « ^vi

The Love of the Creator for the Created

The Bible, with the famous Shir ha-Chirim, the Song of Songs, has accustomed us to the idea that the celebration of love, with human words and crude images, could also be a metaphor for the love between the soul and God. This very idea is already found in the Veda, to describe the cry of love between the God and his creature, the human soul:

« As the creeper holds the tree embraced through and through, so embrace me, be my lover, and do not depart from me! As the eagle, in order to soar, strikes at the ground with its two wings, so I strike at your soul, be my lover and do not depart from me! As the sun one day surrounds the sky and the earth, so I surround your soul. Be my lover and do not depart from me! Desire my body, my feet, desire my thighs; let your eyes, your hair, lover, be consumed with passion for me! »^vii

From this brief return to Vedic memory, and from these few allusions to much more ancient and immanent memories (going back to the origin of the Sapiens species), I conclude that a comparative anthropology of the culture of the depths and that a paleontology of the intuitions of the sacred is not only possible, but indispensable. They are necessary first of all to relativize at last the excessive claims of such or such late religious or philosophical traditions, unduly arrogating themselves specious privileges. Above all, they confirm the necessity and the fruitfulness of a research on the very essence of the human conscience, outside the current framework of thought, materialist, positivist, nominalist, and of which the crushed, wounded modernity suffers so much from the absence of recognition.

___________

i ṚgVeda IV,58.

ii ṚgVeda VIII,91

iii RgVeda X,136

iv ṚgVeda X,71

v ṚgVeda X,71

vi A.V. X,8.

viiA.V. VI,8-9.

Wisdom and י

Publié par Philippe Quéau

In the Hebrew Bible, the word חָכְמָה, ḥokhmah, refers to a stealthy and mysterious entity, sometimes defined by the article (the ḥokhmah)ⁱ but more often undefined, usually as a singular and sometimes as a pluralⁱⁱ. She may ‘dwell’ in the minds of men or among peoples. We do not know where she comes from.ⁱⁱⁱ
She is said to have helped the Most High in his work of Creation.^iv

Here is a brief anthology of her furtive appearances:

She brings life.^v
She makes the face glow.^vi
She is a torrent or a spring.^vii
She can be from the East or from Egypt.^viii
She can fill Joshua^ix or Solomon^x.
She may be found in the humble^xi and the old^xii, in the simple man^xiii or in the righteous^xiv.

She may come with knowledge^xv or with power^xvi, or with intelligence^xvii. But she is far better than strength.^xviii

She may hide in a whisper^xix, in a cry^xx, or in secrecy^xxi.

She can be called ‘friend’^xxii, ‘sister’^xxiii or ‘mother’ or ‘wife’.
She makes one happy.^xxiv
She leads to royalty.^xxv

She is ‘spirit’.^xxvi
She is bright, and she does not fade.^xxvii
Faster than any movement, she is infinitely mobile.^xxviii
She dwells in her own house, and he who dwells with her, is the only one God loves.^xxix

She can do anything.^xxx
She can die^xxxi…

She accompanies the angel of « Elohim », and also the Lord called « Adonai « ^xxxii..
She is in Thôt^xxxiii, but it is YHVH who gives her^xxxiv..
She shares the throne of the Lord.^xxxv
She is with Him, and she knows His works.^xxxvi
She was created before all things.^xxxvii

It is through her that men were formed.^xxxviii
And it is she who saves them.^xxxix

These snippets, these flashes, are only a tiny part of her infinite essence.
But a simple letter, the smallest in the Hebrew alphabet, י, Yod, can understand and embody her (symbolically) in her entirety.

Yod is the first letter of the Tetragrammaton: יהוה. In the Jewish kabbalah, and perhaps for this reason, the Yod corresponds primarily to the sefira Ḥokhmah^xl, ‘Wisdom’, which brings us to the heart of the matter.

The Tetragrammaton יהוה, an admittedly unspeakable name, can at least, in principle, be transcribed in Latin letters: YHVH.
Y for י, H for ה, V for ו, H for ה.
This name, YHVH, as we know, is the unpronounceable name of God.
But if we write it with an interstitial blank YH VH, it is also the name of the primordial Man, – according to the Zohar which we will now recall here.

The commentary on the Book of Ruth in the Zohar does not bother with detours. From the outset, served by an immensely dense style, it plunges into the mystery, it leaps into the abyss, it confronts the primordial night, it explores the depths of the Obscure, it seeks the forgotten origin of the worlds.

The Zohar on Ruth, – a powerful wine, a learned nectar, with aromas of myrrh and incense.
To be savored slowly.

« The Holy One blessed be He created in man YH VH, which is His holy name, the breath of the breath which is called Adam. And lights spread out in nine flashes, which are linked from the Yod. They constitute the one light without separation; therefore the body of man is called Adam’s garment. The He is called breath, and it mates with the Yod, it spreads into many lights that are one. Yod He are without separation, so ‘Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim he created him, male and female he created them… and he called them Adam’ (Gen 1:27 and 5:2). Vav is called spirit, and he is called son of Yod He; He [final] is called soul and he is called daughter. Thus there is Father and Mother, Son and Daughter. And the secret of the word Yod He Vav He is called Adam. His light spreads in forty-five flashes and this is the number of Adamx^xli, mah^xlii, ‘what is it?’ « ^xliii.

Cabalistic logic. Sacredness of the letter, of the number. Unity of the meaning, but multiplicity of its powers. Any idea germinates, and generates drifts, new shadows, nascent suns, moons alone. Thought never ceases its dream, it aspires to breath, to song, to hymn.

The letter connects heaven and earth. Literally: יה → יהוה and וה .
By reading יה, the kabbalist guesses the inchoative, seminal and sexual role of י, – from which the lights of the sefirot will emanate.
Let us summarize what the Zohar says:
YHVH → YH VH → Adam → the Yod, י, the ‘breath of breath’ → Ḥokhmah , the ‘one light’ → from which the other ‘lights’ or sefirot emanate.

YHVH ‘creates in man YH VH’, that is, He creates in man two pairs יה and וה, respectively YH and VH, which will also be, symbolically, the name of the primordial Man, Adam, ‘YH VH’.
These two pairs of letters can be interpreted symbolically, as metaphors of union and filiation: YH = Father-Mother, and VH = Son-Daughter.

It is indeed an ancient interpretation of the Kabbalah that the Yod, י, represents the male principle, and that the letter He, ה, represents the female principle.
The Vav, ו, symbolizes the filial fruit of the union of י and ה. The second ה of the Tetragrammaton is then interpreted as the « Daughter », when associated with the Vav ו…

Human, carnal images, hiding another idea, a wisdom, divine, spiritual…
A second set of metaphors is invoked here by the cabal, which explains:
YH = Wisdom-Intelligence (Ḥokhmah-Binah) and VH = Beauty-Royalty (Tiferet-Malkhut).
From Ḥokhmah, other sefirot emanate.

The Zohar further teaches us that Ḥokhmah, associated with י , the 1st letter of the Tetragrammaton, means the « breath of the breath », and is also called « Adam »…

Is this « Adam » the same as « the Adam » (הָאָדָם ha-‘adam), who was created after the creation of Heaven and Earth (Gen 2:7)?
And what difference, if any, is there between « Adam », breath of breath, and « the Adam » of Genesis?

The Zohar asked this very question and answered it, in an opaque, concise, condensed style:

« What is the difference between Adam and Adam? Here is the difference: YHVH is called Adam, and the body is called Adam, what difference is there between the one and the other? Indeed, where it is said: ‘Elohim created Adam in his own image’, he is YHVH; and where it is not said ‘in his own image’, he is body. After it is said: ‘YHVH Elohim formed’ (Gen 2:7), that is, he formed Adam, he ‘made him’, as it is written: ‘YHVH Elohim made for Adam and his wife a robe of skin and clothed them with it’ (Gen 3:21). In the beginning there is a robe of light, in the likeness of the one above, after they stumbled, there is a robe of skin.^xliv In this connection it is said: ‘All those who are called by my name, whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, and even whom I have made’ (Is 43:7)^xlv. ‘I have created’ is Yod He Vav He, ‘I have formed’ is the robe of light, ‘and I have made’ is the robe of skin. »^xlvi

The clues left by Scripture are thin, to be sure. But Isaiah, with a single sentence, illuminates the intelligence of the creation of Man. And he opens up infinite perspectives to our own understanding of the text which relates it.

Charles Mopsik commented on this key passage as follows: « The verse of Isaiah as read in the Zohar presents a progression of the constitution of man according to three verbs: the verb to create refers to Adam’s constitution as a divine name (the aforementioned four souls [breath of breath, breath, spirit, soul]), the verb to form refers to the constitution of his primordial body, which is a robe of light, and finally the verb to make refers to his constitution after the fall, where his body becomes a material envelope, a tunic of skin, which ‘wrath’, i.e., the Other side, the realm of impurity, borders in the form of the inclination to evil. « ^xlvii

The creation of Man, in Genesis, is described with three Hebrew, essential words: nechamah, ruaḥ and nefech. These words have several meanings. But to keep it simple, they may be translated respectively as « breath », « spirit » and « soul ».

So we learned that there were also, in the very first place, before anything was created, a « breath of breath ».

And the « breath of breath » was wisdom, י.

__________________________

i‘Ha–ḥokhmah’, like in וְהַחָכְמָה, מֵאַיִן תִּמָּצֵא ,Vé-ha-ḥokhmah, méïn timmatsa’, Job 28,12

ii It can be used as a feminine plural noun חָכְמוֹת, ḥokhmot, meaning then, depending on the translation, « wise women », or « wisdoms », or « Wisdom », as in חָכְמוֹת, בָּנְתָה בֵיתָהּ , « The wise women – or wisdoms – built his house » (Pv 9:1) or as חָכְמוֹת, בַּחוּץ תָּרֹנָּה , « The wise women – or Wisdom – shouted through the streets » (Pv 1,20)

iii וְהַחָכְמָה, מֵאַיִן תִּמָּצֵא Vé-ha-ḥokhmah, méïn timmatsa’ ? Job 28,12

iv« YHVH with Wisdom founded the earth, with understanding he established the heavens. » Pv 3,19

v« It is that wisdom gives life to those who possess it ». Qo 7,12

vi« The wisdom of man makes his face shine and gives his face a double ascendancy » Qo 8,1

vii« An overflowing stream, a source of wisdom » Pv 18,4

viii« The wisdom of Solomon was greater than the wisdom of all the children of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt » 1 Kings 5:10

ix« Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the spirit of wisdom » Dt 34,9

xThe Proverbs are attributed to him, as is the Qohelet.

xi« But in the humble there is wisdom » Pv 11,2

xii« Wisdom is with the old » Job 12:12

xiii « He gives wisdom to the simple » Ps 19:8

xiv« The mouth of the righteous expresses wisdom » Pv 10,31

xv« Wisdom and knowledge are the riches that save » Is 33,6

xvi But in Him dwells wisdom and power » Job 12,13

xvii« Spirit of wisdom and understanding » Is 11,2

xviii« Wisdom is better than strength, but the wisdom of the poor is not known » Qo 9,16

xix« The mouth of the righteous whispers wisdom » Ps 37:30

xx« Wisdom cries through the streets » Pv 1,20

xxi« You teach me wisdom in secret » Ps 51:8

xxii« Wisdom is a spirit that is friendly to men » Wis 1,6

xxiii« Say to wisdom: You are my sister! And call reason My friend! » Pv 7.4

xxiv« Blessed is the man who has found wisdom » Pv 3,13

xxvWis 6,20

xxvi« Spirit of wisdom and understanding » Is 11,2

xxviiWis 6,12

xxviiiWis7,24

xxixWis7,28

xxxWis 8,5

xxxi« Wisdom will die with you » Job 12,2

xxxii « But my Lord (Adonai), wise as the wisdom of the angel of Elohim ». 2 Sa 14,20

xxxiiiמִי-שָׁת, בַּטֻּחוֹת חָכְמָה « Who has put wisdom in Thoth [Thouḥot]? » (Job 38:36)

xxxiv« For it is YHVH who gives wisdom » Pv 2,6

xxxvWis 9,4

xxxviWis 9,9

xxxvii« But before all things was created Wisdom. » Sir 1,4

xxxviiiWis 9,2

xxxixWis9,18

xlZohar. Midrash Ha-Neelam on Ruth, 78c. Translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic, and annotated by Charles Mopsik. Ed. Verdier. 1987, p.83, note 136.

xliThe numerical value of the Tetragrammaton YHVH is 45, as is the numerical value of the word Adam.

xliiThe expression « What? » or « What? » (mah) also has 45 as a numerical value.

xliiiZohar. Midrash Ha-Neelam on Ruth, 78c. Translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic, and annotated by Charles Mopsik. Ed. Verdier. 1987, p.82-83. (Ch. Mopsik translates nechama as ‘breath’ and nechama [of the] nechama as ‘breath of the breath’, which is a bit artificial. I prefer to translate nechama, more classically, by ‘breath’, and in its redoubling, by ‘breath of the breath’).

xlivZohar. Midrash Ha-Neelam on Ruth, 78c. Translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic, and annotated by Charles Mopsik. Ed. Verdier. 1987, p.84

xlv כֹּל הַנִּקְרָא בִשְׁמִי, וְלִכְבוֹדִי בְּרָאתִיו: יְצַרְתִּיו, אַף-עֲשִׂיתִיו. The three verbs used here by Isaiah imply a progression of God’s ever-increasing involvement with man; bara’, yatsar, ‘assa, mean respectively: « to create » (to bring out of nothing), « to shape/form », and « to make/complete ».

xlviZohar. Midrash Ha-Neelam on Ruth, 78c. Translated from the Hebrew and Aramaic, and annotated by Charles Mopsik. Ed. Verdier. 1987, p.84

xlviiIbid. note 149

Exile and the Spark of the Soul

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The Hebrew word נִיצוֹץ, nitsots, « spark, » is used only once in the Hebrew Bible. It is found in Isaiah – with a figurative sense of evanescence, transience.
« The mighty man shall become a coal, and his work a spark, and both shall burn together, and no man shall quench them ». (Is 1:31)
In another, verbal form (נֹצְצִם, notstsim, « they sparked »), the root verb natsats is also used only once, — by the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 1:7).
The noun « spark » and the verb « to spark » are two hapaxes.
Rare words, then.
However, in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, called the ‘Septuagint’, because it was translated by seventy rabbis in Alexandria in the 3rd century B.C., the word σπινθὴρ, spinther, ‘spark’ in Greek, is used three times in the Book of Wisdom (also called ‘Solomon’s Book’), and three times in Ecclesiasticus (attributed to ‘Sirach’).
But these two books are considered today as apocryphal by the Jews, and therefore not canonical. On the other hand, they are preserved canonically by the Catholics and the Orthodox.
This does not detract from their intrinsic value, from their poetic breath, not devoid of pessimism.
« We are born of chance, after which we will be as if we had not existed. It is a smoke that breathes from our nostrils, and thought a spark that springs from the beating of our heart (ὁ λόγος σπινθὴρ ἐν κινήσει καρδίας ἡμῶν.); let it be extinguished, and the body will go to ashes, and the spirit will scatter like inconsistent air. » (Wis 2:2-3)
The logos, here, is only a « spark ». Here again the idea of transience, of impalpable brevity, appears.
The other uses of the word « spark » in Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are divided between literal and figurative meanings.ⁱ
Significantly, a verse in Ecclesiasticus seems to invite, precisely, the contemplation of the sparkling transience, quickly drowned in nothingness: « Like a spark that one could contemplate » (Sir 42,22).
The Greek word spinther, « spark, » was also used by Homer in a sense close to that employed by Ezekiel, since it is associated with the representation of the Godhead: « The goddess is like a shining star that (…) sparks a thousand sparks around it (πολλοὶ σπινθῆρες) » (Iliad 4, 73-77)
From the word spinther derives the word spintharis, which is a name of a bird (similar to the Latin word spinturnix). Pierre Chantraine suggests that it is « perhaps because of its eyes ».ⁱⁱ
Do not the eyes of some birds (of prey) sparkle in the night?
Similarly, the Hebrew word nitsots, « spark, » is also used as a bird name for a bird of prey, the hawk or the eagle.
The analogy is perhaps justified because of the twinkling of the eyes in the night, but one can also opt for the analogy of the flight of sparks and birds…
The verbal root of nitsots is נָצַץ, natsats, « to shine, to sparkle ». Natsats is used by Ezekiel to describe the appearance of four « divine appearances » (מַרְאוֹת אֱלֹהִים , mar’ot Elohim) which Ezekiel calls the four « Living Ones » ( חַיּוֹת , Ḥaiot). The four Living Ones each had four faces (panim), « and they sparkled (notstsim) like the appearance of polished tin » (Ezek 1:7).
The verbal root נָצַץ natsats is very close etymologically to another verbal root, נוּץ, nouts, « to blossom, to grow, » and from נָצָה, natsah, « to fly away, to flee. » Moreover, the same noun, נֵץ, nets, means both « flower » and « sparrowhawk », as if this semantic group brought together the notions of spark, bloom, grow, fly away. Added to this are the notions of dispersion, devastation, and metaphorically, flight and exile, carried by the lexical field of the verb natsah, for example in the verses « your cities will be devastated » (Jer 4:7) and « they have fled, they have scattered into exile » (Lam 4:15).

The spark is thus associated with ideas of brilliance, of flowering, but also of bursting forth, of flight, of dispersion, of devastation and even of exile.
Metaphorically, the associated values range from the negative (fleetingness, inanity of the spark) to the very positive (divine « sparkling » appearances).
It is perhaps this richness and ambivalence of the words nitsots, natsats and natsah that prompted Isaac Louria to choose the spark as a metaphor for the human soul.
As Marc-Alain Ouaknin explains, « Rabbi Isaac Luria teaches that the soul [of Adam] is composed of 613 parts: each of these parts is in turn composed of 613 parts or ‘roots’ (chorech); each of these so-called major ‘roots’ is subdivided into a certain number of minor ‘roots’ or ‘sparks’ (nitsot). Each of these ‘sparks’ is an individual holy soul. » ⁱⁱⁱ

But the process of subdivision and individuation, of which three stages have just been set forth, is a process that has to be carried out by the individual soul.

« Each ‘individual spark’ is divided into three levels: nefech, ruach, nechama, and each level has 613 parts. (…) Man’s task is to achieve the perfection of his ‘individual spark’ at all levels. « ^iv

Moreover, Isaac Louria sets the stage for a vast eschatological perspective, in which the link between the spark and the exile, whose etymological kinship has already been emphasized, is particularly highlighted from the point of view of the Lourianic cabala.
« Indeed, Louria proposes an explanatory system – a philosophic-mystical thesis of the historical process (…) The man responsible for History is still to be understood in its collective sense. The entire people of Israel is endowed with its own function. It must prepare the world of Tikkun, bring everything back to its place; it has the duty to gather, to collect the sparks scattered in the four corners of the world.
Therefore, he himself, the people, must be in exile at the four ends of the earth. The Exile is not just a chance, but a mission of reparation and ‘sorting’ (…) The children of Israel are completely engaged in the process of ‘raising the sparks’. « ^v

One would like to imagine that not only Israel, but also all the other people, all the « living », all those who possess a « soul », i.e. a divine « spark », have the vocation to rise, to fly away, and to gather in the divine sun, the luminous burn, – its eternal and fleeting flower.

___________

i« They will shine like sparks running through the reeds. « (Sag 3:7). « Throwing terrible sparks from their eyes » (Wis 11:18). « A spark lights a great fire » (Sir 11:32). « Blow on an ember, it is set on fire, spit on it, it is extinguished; one as well as the other comes out of your mouth. (Sir 28,12) « Like a spark one could contemplate » (Sir 42,22).

iiPierre Chantraine, Etymological Dictionary of the Greek Language. Ed Klincksieck, Paris, 1977.

iiiMarc-Alain Ouaknin, Tsimtsoum. Introduction to Hebrew meditation. Albin Michel. Paris, 1992, p.37

ivIbid. p. 39 It should be noted that the recurrence of the number 613 in these processes of division is probably not unrelated to the 613 commandments (negative and positive) contained in the Torah.

vIbid. pp. 40-41

क – The God Whose Name Was « Who? »

Publié par Philippe Quéau

More than two millennia before the times of Melchisedechⁱ and Abraham, other wandering and pious men were already singing the hymns of Ṛg Veda. Passing them on faithfully, generation after generation, they celebrated through hymns and prayers, the mysteries of a Supreme God, a Lord creator of worlds, of all creatures, of all lives.

Intelligence of the divine did just not begin in Ur in Chaldea, nor sacred wisdom in Salem.

Some sort of intelligence and wisdom probably reigned, more than five thousand years ago, among chosen, attentive, dedicated spirits. These men left as a legacy the hymns they sang, in precise and chiselled phrases, evoking the salient mysteries that already assailed them:

Of the Creator of all things, what can be said? What is His name?

What is the primary source of « Being »? How to name the primordial « Sun », from which the entire Cosmos emerged?

Who is really the Lord imposing His lordship on all beings, – and on the ‘Being’ itself ?

And what does this pronoun, Who, really mean in this context?

What is the role of Man, his true part in this mystery at play?

A Vedic hymn, famous among all, summarizes and condenses all these difficult questions into one single one, both limpid and obscure.

It is Hymn X, 121 of Ṛg Veda, often titled « To the Unknown God ».

In the English translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith, this Hymn is entitled « Ka ».ⁱⁱ Ka, in Sanskrit, means «who ? »

This Hymn is dedicated to the God whom the Veda literally calls « Who? »

Griffith translates the exclamation recurring nine times throughout this ten-verses Hymn as follows :

« What God shall we adore with our oblation ? »

But from the point of view of Sanskrit grammar, it is perfectly possible to personify this interrogative pronoun, Ka (Who?) as the very name of the Unknown God.

Hence this possible translation :

To the God ‘Who?’

1. In the beginning appeared the Golden Germ.

As soon as he was born, he became the Lord of Being,

The support of Earth and this Heaven.