GURDJIEFF: THE ENNEAGRAM AS COMPLEX SYSTEM

This chapter summarizes and brings up to date to the book Um mapa, uma bússola - Hipertexto, Complexidade e Eneagrama (A map, a compass - Hypertext, Complexity and Enneagram (GOMES, 2000) and presents the notion of enneagram as a model of complex system capable to measure noise and self-organization, associating the dynamic and synchronous factors to the subjective and objective aspects. And, in the end, in an inedited appendix, the model of the enneagram is applied to the thought of Carlos Castaneda.

Vicious and Virtuous circles

The books are expensive because there are few readers and there are few readers because the books are expensive; I am sick because I do not have quality of life and I do not have self-esteem because I am sick; the cookies do not sell because they are old and they are old because they do not sell. Life is full of Vicious Circles, that is: cycles of recurrence where the factors of cause are mutually conditioned, preventing the development or the regular functioning of the system in question.
On the other hand, there are also Virtuous Circles, or cycles of excellence, where the causal factors are mutually fed determining an increasing optimization of the system: many readers = cheap books = more readers; quality of life = health = self-esteem; hot cookies = good sales = more cookies. Then, this is the central issue I am concern about (in the theoretical point of view as well as in the existential) for some time: how to transform vicious cycles into virtuous cycles? And more: how and why the order of the causal factors modifies the system's result? Which are the common factors of the excellence to an ' optimum system' and to creative life? Is it possible to establish a theory centered in personal development?
The scholars point the old Mesopotamia as the probable cradle of the enneagram symbol. It would have been mysteriously preserved for many civilizations, arriving at our days through the Sufis sages, the Muslim mystic man. The enneagram, in this context, was a combined system of nine virtues and nine passions. It would have been with them that the Armenian mystic G. Gurdjieff (OUSPENSKY, 1980) learned the symbol and the fundaments of its teaching. Gurdjieff used the model of the enneagram as a synthesis of the Universe and Man, seen as a process of three levels in three stages. The application of this model to the human body resulted in the theory of the three octaves (or secondary enneagrams) and in the association of the biological activities of feeding, breathing and perception through audiovisual vibrations as the three main processes of the human machine to be un-automated. These processes, in their turn, would be interdependent inside of a greater octave (or main enneagram).
This bio-machine had three entrances and three exits, producing three intricate cybernetic cycles of mutual feeding in a single process. And to carry through the great octave through the unmechanization of the three minor octaves, for Gurdjieff and his followers, is the main human purpose in the ecosystem, our photosynthetic and spiritual mission: the production of hydrogen number one .
The enneagram, in this context, was a general structure of the universe seen as a process of three levels and three stages - as much in the micro as in macrocosm. In the system of the enneagram, then, happens the overcrossing of three cognitive centers or “intelligences” - mental, sensible, and motor - with three fields or spheres - the biosphere, the atmosphere and the ionosphere. At this time, the nine points of attachment of the enneagram did not constitute a proper typology. The enneagram was a diagram-synthesis of the mathematical idea of the musical octave as model of universal development.
The 'Personality enneagram' and the application of the enneagram symbol specifically to the study of character will only appear in the 70's with Oscar Ichazo and the School of Arica. However is with the work of the psychologist Claude Naranjo (1986) that the enneagram will constitute a rigorously based psychological typology. According to him, in a certain point of life, we fix in one of the nine points of the circumference and, from this point, we construct our personality. To each fixation point (or cognitive recurrence), there is a corresponding passion (or deficiency motivation). Passion and fixation mutually feed each other, then, forming a type of personality of the enneagram and in moving us away from our essence, of our true Being. In this logic, during the human development there would be, at some traumatic moment, a loss, a limitation, a failure in the growth of the full potential, a fixation of the ego in relation to the circulation of psychic energy. The personality functions as a way to perpetuate the unconsciousness from 'a blind point', in which the energy canalization would happen in an unbalanced form, where "perception is blind of its own blindness".
Thus, personality and unconsciousness also form a vicious circle: the conditioned personality leads to the one specific interference in the biological organism (strengthening the fixation point); this interference in the organism cause a loss of the experience (of totality) of Being; e, finally, the loss of the experience of Being feeds the dominant passion and the perpetuation of the conditioned personality.
In this typological system, the first step is to discover which is the predominant cognitive center of someone: whereas it is the mental, the emotional or the motor center. From then on, one may observe the predominance of an introverted, extrovert or ambivalent ego.
And the second step, in this system, is to discover which the neglected centers are, and to define in which of the nine points of the enneagram are we are fixed in.
SUMMARY ENNEAGRAMATICAL TYPES
The Perfectionist (type 1): type with preference for the motor center (introverted) that neglects the mental center. Fixation: Extremely organized and diligent, with very high standards - in the areas of its interest. They are serious and sincere, aiming to be independent from others and avoid having others depending on him. He establishes clear borders in relation to the physical and mental territories, believing that it is possible to control all situations through organization. Passion: He valorizes "moral and good habits”, and judges everything and everyone, many times with destructive critics. When things do not go according to his plans or orders, he blows up in irrational anger, therefore 'Anger' is the deadly sin chosen for its characterization.
The Giver (type 2): type with preference for the emotional center (extrovert) that neglects the mental center. Fixation: He easily identify with other people's desires and problems, having a hard time to say 'no' when it comes to help somebody. Passion: however this affective empathy is never truly disinterested, actually it is part of a manipulation strategy that tries to make others to depend on him. 'Twos' give, give, give… in order to be accepted. In compensation, they take care of in such a way about the others that they forget about themselves and their own necessities, desires and aspirations. They do not need this. Therefore 'Pride' it is its main characteristic.
The Performer (type 3): type with preference for the emotional center (ambivalent) that neglects the very emotional center. Fixation: Thus it for him it is easy to dissemble his true feelings (anger, fear, anxiety, etc.), using many masks (one for each occasion). Therefore, it is also called 'Chameleon'. Wants to be admired by any means and sees everything from the perspective of this dispute for admiration and recognition. Generally are demanding and worried people when it comes to reaching their goals. Passion: 'Vanity' or emotional capacity to counterfeit the truth from relative and subjective realities, transferring the responsibility of its errors to others.
The Individualist (type 4): type with preference for the emotional center (introverted) that neglects the motor center. Fixation: Generally they are very sensitive people and with little contact with the exterior world, identifying and explaining things better through symbols. They like to be special, unique e singular, cultivating different and strange preferences. They appreciate social status and have miss attention; however, at the same time that they feel superior to the others, they suffer due to the isolation. Passion: They have a tendency to depression and melancholy. To desire is more important than to possess, therefore as soon as they obtain the object of their desires, they feel frustrated. Therefore, 'Envy' is their deadly sin.
The Investigator (type 5): type with preference for the mental center (introverted) that neglects the motor center. Fixation: They are objective and extremely rational people, but have certain difficulty relating with others. They can easily ignore people around, bothering them. They like to get isolated to solve the learned knowledge and hate when people usurp their time or freedom with details or small tasks. Passion: the Avarice. However, is not simply about money, but, over all about time and knowledge. The ego of number five refuses to share its experience of world that they believe to be more rationalized than of the majority of people.
The Defender (type 6): type with preference for the mental center (ambivalent) that neglects the proper mental center. Fixation: they are people who look to be mentally busy in order not to think. Then to be so questioning ('Devil´s advocates') as well as intuitive. Passion: fear. 'Sixes' are dependent and insecure people, who always need the support of a reference (a boss, an institution). Among the mental types, they are more loyal and trustworthy in relation to the rules of its group than to their friends individually. They are divided into Phobic (or assumed cowards) and counter-phobic (apparently fearless), and may get to extremes.
The Dreamer (type 7): type with preference for the mental center (extrovert) and neglects the emotional center. Fixation: They are always enthusiastic and happy people, but that they nourish many illusions and fantasies. Actually this 'innocence' of the type number 7 prevents any eventual pain or suffering, only observing the good side of the events and life. They are, generally, loquacious and very manipulating orators. Passion: Gluttony, not only for foods, but for people, information and adventures. 'Sevens' have appetite for anything that pleasures them.
The Challenger (type 8): type with preference for the motor center (extrovert) that neglects the emotional center. Fixation: People who see the world in relation to justice and power, and consider themselves capable to nullify and to revenge its injustices. And many times act absurdly on behalf of the forsaken ones that they intend to defend. Passion: They search confrontation as a form to impose his supremacy, many times simply for pleasure. They like to conquer more and more territories and to be seen as strong people, capable to protect those to help them. They never ask for forgiveness. At first, are always contrary to any innovation.
The Peacemaker (type 9): type with preference for the motor center (ambivalent) that neglects the proper motor center. Fixation: This type is characterized for preventing conflicts at any cost. In contrast to the other motor types (1 and 8) has a democratic relation in the matter of physical and mental territories, as much invading as letting people to invade their domains. They are people who do not establish borders or limits of the space/time. Passion: Laziness. But not simply laziness or leisure in relation to work. It is matter here of mental indolence, 'laziness of being’, many times occulted by the mask of many not essential activities. The sin of the pacifist is to delay important things.
The enneagramatic types are ideal models, abstract generalizations of concrete and singular people, of a gigantic gamma of factors and cultural traces of many times and places.
We can still emphasize three great contributions of Naranjo to the enneagram of the Personality:
A - The therapeutical approach and the role of no interference of the analyst. While Gurdjieff (certainly an eight) interacted instinctively with his disciples through confrontation, presenting tests and exercises according to his fixations; Oscar Ichazo used the technique of authorized diagnosis, indicating the type of each one of his pupils and clients. Naranjo defends the self-diagnosis, that is, each one must discover its own type inside the system of classification, supervised by a simple coordinator. The role of the enneagram of ministrant evolved from spiritual guru for to psychologist and then therapeutical facilitator.
B - A theory of the meta-instinctive neurosis, based upon general strategies of adaptation. Establishing analogies between the Proto-analysis of Oscar Ichazo and other psychological typologies in a single scientific taxonomy, Naranjo constructed a skillful `theory of neurosis and conscience degradation'. Freud constructed his theory of neurosis from the idea of the repression of the instinctive life, mainly of the sexuality: the neurosis was a form of pathological sublimation of our desires. To Naranjo, the neurosis (or the fixation on a recurrent point) also originates from a traumatic experience from which an obsolete reaction (a mechanism of recurrent defense) is fixed, this allied to the loss of the capacity to act creatively.
C - Naranjo, however, recognizes the importance of the instinctive life on the development of the neurotic personalities and adds to the enneagram system the idea that, independently from the enneatype, we are marked by one of the three specific forms of instinctive restrictions that we suffer: sexual (Freud), relationary (Lacan) and the survival (Marx). Instincts developed in relation to the Other (and the nature), to the others (the groups) and to oneself as individuals before society.
Even the Naranjo´s typology and the enneagram seen as a system of compulsions of the ego´s vices and virtues being consistent and interesting, the psychological typology made the symbol to lose its original fluidity and its cognitive set (as an example of what also happened with the astrology, with the orishas and other traditional mythologies that became modern psychological typologies). Thus, we are not a single type. We 'stay' {translation note: in the original ser and estar, both verbs translated by the English to be. While ser means being forever, or since always or up to know, or from a point on, estar is being in the exact present and acquires a meaning of something that may be transformed)one, or three, or seven - depending on the time, place and the people with whom we interact with. It is common the person to have a fixation point at work, another one at home, a third with friends.
To recover the essence of the enneagram it is necessary to return to the original symbolism. Thus, retaking the ideas of Bennett (1999) and replacing them in a contemporary scientific context, we develop the notion of 'Complex Compass’, as a model of complex system, taking in account the dynamic/synchronous aspects as well as the objective/ subjective aspects. Bennett goes back to Gurdjieff´s enneagram model, previous to the typological model, ruled by two laws: the law of three or the law of seven (or law of octaves).
The Law of Three (external cycles). According to the enneagram theory, we shall observe the external movement of a determined event in three successive stages. Following our example of a cognitive enneagram: in case this movement to be centrifugal and aggregates energy to the system, we will have the pattern motor-emotional-mental, producing feelings; in case it is centripetal, we will have a pattern where the mental movement anticipates the emotional movement, generating emotions. The feelings sprout from the body to the affective field or ‘heart' (sadness, joy, for example), while the emotions are always pernicious rationalizations, in which images and thoughts precede the affective field, because they drain the energy and personal power of the warrior. Thus, not only negative emotions (the anger, pride, envy, vanity), but, overall, the idea of an interpretive identity of the ego (the self-importance) must be fought with tenacity.
The Law of Seven (internal cycles). Following the same circular model of opposite rotations, the enneagram also describes the order of the movements internal to the apparently chaotic system through the division of the unit by seven and for the decimates periodic 1428571… and the successive additions of sevenths reproduce this complex standard, but starting with different numbers, corresponding to the internal points of the enneagram. This way, each fraction represents one of the secondary points of the enneagram and also the movement between them, as much clockwise as counter-clockwise.
This complex pattern was called by Gurdjieff ‘Law of the Octaves’, in an explicit comparison with the ascending and descending musical scales. These properties seen together (the circularity of the three external points and the internal movement of its octaves) form the symbol of the enneagram.
In contrast, many times the system´s tendency of energy conservation is reactionary when it comes to changes, while the chaotic factors and the noise demand disorganization necessary to growth. In way that, beyond the Virtuous and Vicious circles of three exterior and objective factors, the model of the enneagram presents yet the possibility of representation of the subjective elements of different agents in each point of the process, as much clockwise as counter-clockwise. It is clear that, practically, reality is constituted simultaneously of centripetal and centrifugal tendencies.
Bennett dealt only with processes where the factor time was counted backwards, as a chronometer, companies of daily product, for example, bakery, banks, periodicals, where the sequential processes are guided by time countdown, in cyclical processes. A classic example of the application of the Model of the enneagram as a system is the 'Active Kitchen'.
'Kitchen ready to work' (point 1), is preliminary activity of organization of all necessary tools for the beginning of the process, we have to anticipate what we will prepare (point 4) and how we are going to serve (point 7). On its turn, ' working Kitchen' (point 2), we keep our attention in what we are preparing (point 4), but dislocate our imagination from the formal aspect of the food presentation to its flavor, its spices, how it will be degusted (point 8).
The Food introduction (point 3) corresponds to the beginning of a new octave, beyond giving follow up to the cycle already initiated. In a similar way 'food Preparation' (point 4) is directly conditioned by the organization (point 1) and the functioning (point 2) of the kitchen; the baking of foods implies in its appearance (point 7) and flavor (point 8); e the introduction of the Commensals also brings us to the beginning of a new cycle and the continuation of the preceding cycles. By the way, it is important to stand out that the Kitchen (point 9), the Foods (point 3) and the Commensals (point 6) is basic external elements. They represent the chronological succession of the events as well as the different teams or agents of the process (cycle of the assistants, cycle of the cooks, cycle of the commensals) each one keeps an internal autonomy of process, symbolized by three secondary octaves).
Thus, beyond the objective cycle of the exterior elements, the enneagram presents the possibility of representation of the subjective elements of different agents in each point of the process. Let us think, for example, that when seeing and eating the meal (points 7 and 8), the Commensals imagines the work of the cooks (point 5) and of the assistants (point 1 and 2) of the kitchen; and, from these subjective elements, reconstitute all objective process.
Besides these chronological external relations and its circumstantial insights, still there is a great octave, representing the mental process of general planning of everything that will be executed. This cycle is represented by decimate: .1758241, that is, to organize the kitchen (1) thinking about serving the meal (7); cooking foods (5) thinking about eating the meal (8); to put the kitchen into functioning (2) thinking on preparing the food (4); and, finally, to clean and to reorganize the kitchen (1). But, the enneagram is a tool, not only to measure the organization (the energy conservation), but, overall, for localization of noise and the entropy. We represent these chaotic factors, which appear in the objective cycle as much as in the subjective ones, by the centripetal circular movement.
In the ternary objective aspect, it would be equivalent to the Commensals (point 6, mental factor) to be introduced in the process before the Cooks (point 3, emotional factor), that had arrived late. This inversion of the mental and emotional factors always characterizes objectively the vicious circle. And in the subjective aspect, the thought of a chronic pessimist would follow model .1428571, that is, an inadequate organization in the kitchen (1) confuses the preparation of the food (4); this certainly also harms the correct functioning of the kitchen (2) and the meal itself (8); a time that delays the 'food baking' (5) and 'serving of the meal' (7). After all this mess it still remains to clean everything up and to arrange the kitchen again (1).
In this example, Bennett all elaborates a game of relations that we can retake now to a model of enneagram as a complex system and not only as a methodology of systematic analysis of circular processes.
When the causal factors result in a concentration of energy of the system we say that they spin to the inside, clockwise; on the other hand, when the causal factors feed each other in a way to provoke expansion and the increasing loss of the system´s energy, we say that they spin to the outside, counter-clockwise. We call Virtuous Circle all the centripetal cycles that are improved, that seeks excellence, inside determined rules and situations given, and Vicious Circle (or Circle of Passions), those centrifugal cycles that do not develop inside determined conditions and remain in a condition of stagnation. The Creative Circles, or self-poetical, are the centrifugal cycles that, instead of simply accepting or denying the preset conditions, modify them, thus instituting a new order from noise.
The difference between Bennett´s Systematics and the approach based on the complexity is that any process is liable of analysis and one goes from a context headed towards mechanic engineering to a paradigm worried about energy waste. Also it is important to understand that not always the restrictive and entropic factors are maleficent and the synergic factors, beneficial. On the contrary, many times the tendency to energy conservation of a system is reactionary in relation to changes, while the chaotic factors and the noise demand disorganization necessary to growth.
But, having made these comments, transposed the scenarios of the times of systematics to the time of complexity y lets go back to the cognitive focus of the enneagram, representing the two contrary cycles of order and noise by the names of:
• The Way of the Feelings - Centripetal Cycle or of energy conservation:
OBJECTIVE (9-3-6) and SUBJECTIVE (1-7-5-8-2-4-1). In the centripetal movement there is an ethical path - where the relation with one self, with the body and with the environment (or `the outside' - 8, 9 and 1), arouse the relation with the Other (or `the inside' - 2, 3 and 4) and with the others (or the `discursive forms' - 5, 6 and 7).
• The Way of the Emotions - centrifugal Cycle or energy waste:
OBJECTIVE (9-6-3) and SUBJECTIVE (1-4-2-8-5-7-1), subdividing this last one in reactive and creative emotions, therefore, beyond its destructive character, the noise and its disorganizations are essential to changes of standards and the development of autonomy. In these two types of centrifugal movement there is moral way, where the relation with the group preceded the relation with the Other individual one. Being that, the reactive behavior is to observe the outside through a cultural filter, while the creative behavior understands its feelings and the world through the discursive forms. Both the attitudes are moral, therefore the subjectivity precedes objectivity. The difference is to be conscientious of the emotions or to live (actually to suffer) them involuntarily.
Well seen these definitions, we can apply the model of the enneagram to other systems and ways of thinking, as for example, Carlos Castaneda.
Enneagram and Castaneda
From the model of the enneagram we mathematically define the Art of Stalking as a 6-3-9 counter-clockwise spin and Art of Dreaming as a 3-6-9 clockwise spin; or even we may adopt an ennea-circle for each movement - being that the Stalking starts in the mind (6,666) and the Dreaming, in the heart (3,333).
The Circle of the Stalking, of centripetal spin, represents the creative fight against the vicious circles and our capacity to fix the point of perception agglutination through the field of ordinary cognition, also called first attention or tonal (6 = little tyrant, 3 = to not do, 9 = recapitulation).
The Dreaming Circle is virtuous, that is, of centrifugal spin (3 = lucid dreams, 6 = the double dreamer, 9 = jump to the infinite) and consists in the capacity to dislocate the point of perception agglutination through the fields of extraordinary cognition, also called second attention.
Armando Torres calls the attention for the Art of Intention (the art of the conscientious manipulation of the desires) as an intermediate domain between the Dream and the Stalking. The “intention domain” or “the point zero of the vertical horizon” is the perception between objects and the energy. To fix perception in this point allows seeing indistinctly emptiness and silence without losing of sight the order of the tonal order, as a world of polarities between the reality of the things and the universe of the relations.
If the nagual or universe of relations corresponds to the transcendent infinite (point 3,333…) e the tonal, its duplication, the immanent infinite (point 6,666), then point 9,999 is the point of controlled madness, that is, the infinite seen as polarity. Point zero is the center of the circle, the total infinite, the not-to be. The difference between the degree zero (the nothing) and point 9,999 (or almost nothing) is the same between madness and controlled madness.
If we take the Stalking and the Dreaming as two polar circular movements (and also in its reduced forms as controlled madness through disguises and lucid dreams) we can place all these practices in the model of the enneagram in two great objective cycles.
In the Cycle of Stalking, one starts making the inventory (1) of the actions and thoughts that spend energy unnecessarily. The second step is simple: to not do (2) these actions and to save this energy. Controlled Madness (3) is art of the disguises and the changes to attitudes contrary to the habitual ones. After deducting the habits and actions that dissipate energy, the practitioner of the stalking must now adopt behaviors contrary to the ones acquired during its life. Stalking is an art where the ego is the prey and the conscience, the hunter. Thus, besides the Mannering changes it is necessary to develop a deep interior silence (4) and several techniques of observation (5) to understand the movements of the prey and to plan the development of a strategy.
The little Tyrant (6), that is, the authority and the power of someone over the practitioner, is the most efficient form to discipline the stalker. To win this relation and to reach its excellent development, the warrior will need the maximum of energy, obtained through the practice of the magical passes (7) and the impeccability in his every action (8). The Recapitulation (9) crowns all process.
Now, in the objective cycle of Dreaming, one starts finding its hands or the point below its navel (8) during the dream (actually, finding the dreaming motricity). After that, naturally, the dreamer will start to fly (7). He will notice then that it possesses a dreaming body (6) and that he can See (5) the universe as moving energy. To consolidate his situation, the dreamer will need Allies (4), beings that may help him to expand his conscience even more in exchange of energy. With the time he also will have Lucid Dreams (3), that is, dreams during vigil and will travel through the Inorganic Kingdoms (2), up the point when it loses definitively the human form (1) and jump to the Infinite (9).
Currently there are many theoretical initiatives interested in integrating the enneagram with other forms of thinking, mainly with the models of the SDI and the Quadrants of Ken Wilber. Here, as it was seen in other chapters, the main focus is the hypothesis of cognitive symmetry and not the construction of meta-theoretical supermodel. However, we will still come back to this subject other times in the future.

REFERENCES:
BENNETT, J. G. O enneagram - um estudo pormenorizado do enneagram usado Gurdjieff para simbolizar o trabalho da consciência tanto na vida diária como nos níveis esotéricos. São Paulo: Ed. Pensamento, 1999.
CHABRENIL, P. & F. A Empresa e seus colaboradores - Usando o enneagram para Otimizar Recursos. São Paulo: Editora Madras, 1999.
GOMES, Marcelo. Um mapa, uma bússola – Hipertexto, enneagram e Complexidade. Rio de Janeiro: Mileto, 2000.
NARANJO, C. Os Nove Tipos de Personalidade - Um estudo do caráter humano através do enneagram. Rio de Janeiro, Editora Objetiva, 1996.
OUSPENSKY, P. D. Fragmentos de um ensinamento desconhecido - Em busca do milagroso. Coleção Ganesha. São Paulo: Pensamento, 1980.
______Psicologia da Evolução Possível ao Homem. São Paulo: Pensamento, 1986.
PALMER, H. O enneagram: compreendendo a si mesmo e aos outros em sua vida. São Paulo: Edições Paulinas, 1993.

Ken Wilber - a summary

Besides summarizing the integral thought of Ken Wilber, that synthesizes different theoretical models and traditional cartography in a holistic approach, the present text aims to demonstrate that the notions of Communication and Complexity permeate his ideas, although they do not appear explicitly in his books. The integral thought of Ken Wilber represents a step ahead, as much in relation to the neo-platonic holistic movement (and the Metaphysic of the ideal forms) and neo-Hegelian (that generalizes everything on behalf of the whole) movement of the New Age, as much in the inter-subjective relativist pluralism of the post-modern thinkers (whether they are esoteric or academics). Ken Wilber starting point is the necessity of a single theoretical model that would comprise every phenomenon: the theory of everything. However, on a different perspective from the physicists, who, in truth, want to construct a monologic ' theory of whole' and not a theory of everything, capable to get down to each specific domain of the human knowledge without losing the vision entirety. By the way, for Wilber, there is not only one universe subdivided in connective parts, nor a multiple complexity without totalization or synthesis possible, but a Kosmo (with ' k' in a reference to the Greek notion) formed by several 'holons' (wholes-parts) in hierarchy, with a totality being part of another totality in a superior scale: atomic holon, molecular holon, organic holon, planetary holon. Wilber calls these systemic hierarchies ' Holonarchys' and calls the set of these ontological nets, ‘The Great Chain of Being’. To map the holonarchies, Wilber elaborates a complex castle of concepts, crossing some theories and approaches of different domains. It is a complex model that combines different theories and other models. Wilber considers it a map and remembers that “we must not confuse the map with the territory”, that the model is only an attempt to frame and to think reality, a complex physicality, which always escapes from us.

The elements of Ken Wilber’s model or IOS (Integral Operating System) come from the crossing and analogy of several other models and approaches, and are the following: states, levels (or degrees), lines, types and quadrants.

The State of conscience is a subjective reality. The vigil, the dream and the deep sleep. Wilber believes that the development of these three universal states of the human conscience correspond, in many traditional mythologies, to superior states of conscience (to the experience of the physical, subtle and causal bodies) and still adds the experience of a fourth superior state of conscience: the non-duality.

Levels are “relevant emergent qualities in discrete way”. Wilber establishes three of them: pre-conventional (or ego-centered), the conventional (or ethnocentric) and the post-conventional (or globe centric). The levels are graduations in a vertical scale that can be subdivided in minor units. In the system of chakras, for example, the three first ones (food, sex and power) correspond to the ego-centered one; the two central (the communication and 'heart'), to the conventional; and the two superiors (psychic and spiritual), to the globe-centered.

This also is the case of the Levels (or vMemes) of the Spiral Dynamics Integral – SDI, a model where the different levels of psychological development form a specter of the conscience. This model (based in the work of Clare Graves, Don Beck and Richard Cowan) adopts the colors as fundament for differentiation between the levels of personal development, to evidence its transitory character, not-fixed.

The SDI is an emerging and oscillating process, marked by a gradual subordination of older systems of behavior, to most recent systems, of superior order, that occur as the existential problems change. It serves mankind as a whole (in the evolutive sense and in the sense of the current social structure) as much as the individual development (biographical and of levels of perception).

Wilber makes projections on how many people are currently in each level: in the archaic level(beige) 0.1%; in the animistic level (purple) 10%; in feudal imperialism (red) 20%; in mythical level (blue) 40%; in modernity (orange) 30%; e in the post-modern (green) level 10%. In this perspective, the beige and purple waves represent ‘pre-conventional ego-centered' behaviors, that refute social rules and institutions; the red and blue waves represent (60% of the world-wide population) the two 'conventional ethnocentric' behaviors, of imposition and conformity with the rules; and the orange and green waves (30%) correspond to the 'post-conventional world-centered' behaviors, conscientious and individualistic. According to Wilber (2002, 20-24), we are in a moment of increase of the green wave and close to a jump to a thought of second order, the yellow wave. For us, it is important to stand out the partial compatibility between the models of Wilber and the hypothesis of symmetry between the ordinary and extraordinary cognitions. The difference is that the model of the cerebral circuits is less evolutionist from the collective point of view and more fixed in terms of the constitution of the individual identities (conscience, ego, mind, personality). Moreover, Ken Wilber comprehends the green wave inside the ordinary reality (which means that a part of humanity is already developing neuro-somatic cerebral circuits) and only the following levels (yellow, turquoise and coral) as future possibilities of development.

There are differences between States and Levels. The levels of conscience are permanent, marks of the development in a vertical scale (“the subject of a level becomes the object of the following level”) and, as we saw, can be represented in many forms. The conscience states are 'horizontal'. When dealing with common states of conscience, are cyclical and the superior states of conscience are temporary events. One can, then, be a person culturally behind time (prejudicial, moralist) and yet reach high states of mystic conscience; as well as one can be a person sufficiently developed in some cognitive aspects and not get to experience spiritual trances. The levels are in the subjective plan in the 1º quadrant; the states are placed in the objective plan, in the 2º quadrant.

Besides the States (horizontal) and of the Levels (vertical), either of the SD or of other scales, the model of understanding the development of the conscience considered by Wilber has a third dimension, or depth. There are still many Lines of Development (or multiple intelligences as proposed by Gardner), where Wilber, incorporating different authors, adopts specific approaches: aesthetic, psycho-sexual, moral, affective, inter-personal, necessity, values, spiritual and cognitive. But, there are some contradictions and superpositions. Some authors confound lines with levels, giving more emphasis to a factor than to another. The word ' spiritual', for example, has four different meanings: as trans-personal level, as line or intelligence, as religious experience and as a special attitude. (2006, 133) The cognitive development also does not have well defined dimensions in relation to the other lines of development. Wilber criticizes Piaget for considering the cognitive development “the electric wire that illuminates the Christmas tree” of the other lines of development (affective, moral, etc), but does not establish the limits of autonomy of these other lines in relation to the development entirety, limiting himself to affirm that “the cognitive development is a necessary factor, but not sufficient to the development of other lines of development” (2006, 137).

Wilber also crosses the lines with the levels, getting a development psycho-graphic with five lines and three levels.

Thus, one determined individual may be on a pre-conventional level in linguistic and affective point of view (immaturity), and in a post-conventional level in the point of view of its logical-abstract development, for example.

The category Type or horizontal typologies is adopted by Wilber to differentiate the individual perception of the world, and can be used in many ways. It can be used with the 9 types of the eneagram, the 16 types of Jung or 4 types of Myers-Briggs. Wilber stands out the cleavage by gender, that is, how the masculine and feminine types live deeply and perceive life and the world differently. Also one can consider here the social cleavages of age, social class, level of scholarity, income, culture, etc

And, finally, fifth, last and most important element of Ken Wilber’s theoretical castle is the notion of Quadrants. The Model of the Quadrants consists of simultaneously taking things in four analytical dimensions: the subjective individual or 'I' (the mind); the objective individual or 'he' (the brain), the subjective collectiveness or 'us' (the culture); and, finally, the objective collectiveness or 'them' (the society).

Thus, if we take a determined holon as object, the family x, for example, we will have to fit it into four perspectives: the persons (individual history) and the role that that they play (father, mother, son, etc) - first quadrant; the genetic aspect and the hereditary structure - second quadrant; the relation of family x with other similar families in different aspects - third quadrant; and, finally, the economic, social and political relations of family x: how this familiar holon incases within society as a whole, a hierarchically superior holon.

This quadruple perspective, or `integral perspective', pretty much reduces the possibility of reductionist approaches and has other advantages in relation to the traditional, modern and post-modern perspectives. For Wilber, “there two errors that we can be commit in relation to this (4º) quadrant. One is to make it absolute; the other is to deny it. Modernity commits the first one; post-modernity, the second” (2007, 212). That is: the modern critic to the traditional subjectivity is objectivist (“the perspective of nowhere”); the post-modern critic is exclusively inter-subjectivist and ends up denying objectivity itself. The integral approach intends to integrate the subjective metaphysics of the traditions to the modern objectivity and to the post-modern inter-personal contextualization on a single approach. One of the advantages of the quadrant’s model is a re-interpretation of the traditional schemes, which place the material world as “a consequence of the superior worlds” (the mind, the soul and the spirit are previous to the body). For Wilber, the “substance is exterior and not inferior” to the subjective dimensions. For the traditions, the symmetry is not hypothetical, but Metaphysical and Wilber tries to invert this predominance of what is subjective over what is material, establishing its equivalence and differentiating its individual and collective dimensions.

But, besides reallocating the question of symmetry in terms of exterior/interior inversion in the traditional project, the model of the quadrants also deals with the question of the asymmetry between what is individual and what is social. Asymmetry in two ways. First: if we apply the lines, degrees or levels to each quadrant, one may observe that the different stages of development of the individuals do not correspond to the stages of development of the societies, groups or other collectivities, or that the approaches that make these associations stand out the partial aspects and simplify complex processes in function of the analogy. But, there is also an asymmetry between collective and singular, resultant from the application of the model of the quadrants to itself. In this in case, Wilber presents the distinction between the simple Quadrant, the perspective of the subject, and the Quadrivium, perspective from where one looks at the object. “Only individual holons have or possess four quadrants; but everything can be seen through or from four quadrants (that, then, are called quadrivia)” (2007, 316) All conceptual castle constructed by Wilber is a map of the complexity, a model to locate and to comprehend phenomena of multiple aspects and perspectives. In our case in particular, we are interested in observe how the integral methodological outspread helps to understand the field and the notion of `communication'.

From the IOS model, Wilber points out eight complementary theoretical approaches to compose an Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP): the phenomenology, the structuralism, cognitive autopoesis, the neuro-physiologic empiricism, the hermeneutics, the ethno-methodology (or genealogy), social autopoesis (in the truth, comprehensive sociology) and the systems theory (Luhmann).

The Phenomenology corresponds to the methodology of the 1º Quadrant (therefore it studies the events from its immediate perception by the subject) and the Structuralism, to the methodology of the first Quadrivium (because it studies how this perception is organized when seen from the outside, how the set of the relations conditions the conscience). In the Leary/Wilson model, the 1º quadrant represents the Conscience (perception of the material universe) and 1º Quadrivium, the possibility of development of a neuro-atomic circuit, or a Quantum Conscience (perception of the universe as energy). This opposition also corresponds to the concepts of Tonal (world of objects and the things, where the substance is a particle) and Nagual (energy universe, where the substance is a wave).

In 2º Quadrant, Wilber points out the ideas of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (cognitive Autopoesis). E in 2º Quadrivium, the objectivation of the objective individual, is the neuro-physiologic empiricism. I, particularly, would change Varela’s approach for Giddens’ structure theory. The basic idea here, however, is that the subject becomes a double object, the objective development of perception capacity (in the quadrant) as much as the support (the body organs) that take this experience into practice (in the quadrivium).

The Hermeneutics corresponds to the methodology of the inter-subjectivity study seen from the point of view of a participant observer, in the 3º Quadrant, and Ethno-methodology (as well as genealogy) corresponds to the 3º Quadrivium, which is, the inter-subjectivity seen from the outside. Wilber indicates others disciplines that have the same focus of the ethno-methodology, as the Genealogy and the integral Semiotics.

And the 4th Quadrant corresponds to the theory of the Social Autopoesis, while the current Systems Theory corresponds to the 4th Quadrivium. According to Wilber, individual holons pass by obligatory levels (as the Dynamic Spiral), but not social holons. Also, there is not a centralized cognition in the social holons. In a `system-organism' (individual holon) there is a dominant monad, and in the social holons there is, at the maximum, a dominant discourse (or a predominant way of mutual resonance). It is well known critic of Nickas Luhmann to Umberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (P. 189): “society is not a system”. The ‘We’, the culture, is a collective subjectivity, but not a collective ‘super-I’- nor in man, neither in other gregarious animals. An interesting example is given by Gaia (Earth seen as an ecosystem), is not a single organism, it is a club (P. 223) or a set of nets of organic and inorganic beings. Such conception brings prominence (like Luhmann does) to the idea of communication as the constituent factor of the cognitive systems over which social holons are structuralized.

REFERENCES
WILBER, Ken. O Paradigma Holográfico e Outros Paradoxos. São Paulo: Cultrix, 1991.
__________O Espectro da Consciência. São Paulo: Cultrix, 1996.
__________Um Deus Social. São Paulo: Cultrix, 1987.
__________Transformações da Consciência. São Paulo: Cultrix, 1999.
__________O Projeto Atman: Uma Visão Transpessoal do Desenvolvimento Humano. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2000.
__________O Olho do Espírito. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2001.
__________A União da Alma e dos Sentidos. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2001.
__________Uma Breve História de Tudo. São Paulo: Via Óptima, 2002.
__________Psicologia Integral: Consciência, Espírito, Psicologia, Terapia. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2002.
__________Teoria de Tudo – uma visão integral para os negócios, a política, a ciência e a espiritualidade. Tradução Denise de C. Rocha Delela e Rogério Tadeu Correa de Leão Lima. São Paulo, Cultrix, 2003.
__________Boomeritis Um Romance que Tornará Você Livre. São Paulo: Madras, 2005.
__________ Espiritualidade Integral – uma nova função para religião neste inicio de milênio. Tradução Cássia Nassser. São Paulo: Alef, 2007.

BIOGRAPHY AND SUBJECTIVITY

Methodological procedures for self-knowledge. This text intends to discuss methodological parameters and procedures for organization of biographies and for the historical study of the individual subjectivity through the hermeneutics, the general theory of interpretation. Generally, the hermeneutics are applied to explain and to understand other scientific theories, works of art, political discourses; here, we intended to use it also to understand not only the course of the human lives, but the significance of existence.

BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY

The biographical study in Social Sciences (or the Individual-Society relation) has a long history, having been used in different ways at different moments[1]. From the 80´s, the approach called “life history” - where there is a distinction between `life story ' (the verbal autobiography) and the ‘history of life' (the subjectivity objectified by documents and the external narrative of the researcher) - gained prominence in the anthropological research. And, recently, this technique started to be applied to specific social groups, many times in autobiographical form, as professors and pupils (BUENO, 2002).

The collective actors of the Social Sciences (classrooms, parties, states, organizations, etc) are, truly, formed by people. Here, however, it is not about using the biographical approach to reconstitute the historical memory, but actually to arrive at the cognitive vertex of the social action. In this perspective, the true historical praxis is the one that responds creatively to its structural conditionings, transforming the conditions that had formed it.

After all, “It is mankind that, without knowing it, makes its own history”. However, even so there are many social scientists conscientious about the weight of the collective structures and the role of the individual praxis as main factor of social transformation, the task of writing biographies always were left to journalists and writers that, due to the habit, generally exaggerate the power of the personality of the subject over its historical context. The same can be said about the biographies of psychoanalytic and literary inspiration. The focus of the biographical research cannot minimize nor super value the individual subjectivity in relation to the collective dimension.

This requirement of a realistic framing of the individual within society becomes yet greater and more complex when it is about an autobiography, in which the subjectivity of the researching subject is the same one of that of the researched object. When the research becomes the subject, the verb and the object of the speech, when the investigation about life is confused with life itself, it is necessary to define parameters to keep some objectivity. Thus, the first step of the biographical research is to set the context of the studied individual life in relation to the different scenes where he is inserted.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE CONDITIONING FACTORS
Geographic scene: Country, region, city, place of life.
Historical scene: Century, decades, important facts.
Familiar scene: Parents, brothers and close relatives.
Educational scene: Schools, professors, friends.
Economic scene: Form of production, social class.

However, it would be useless to approach the social and historical context of the individual life if one does not also observe the psychological dimension of the biographical study, concerning as much the upbringing, the conflicts and the transformation of the biographed personality as our proper subjectivity. We live lives already partially lived and transform it into paradigms and models. We involuntarily mimesize behaviors that were structuralized before us, by fellow creatures in a similar situation. In this direction, the study of the biographies of the historical personalities can reveal unconscious standards, allowing new options and different choices.

But, besides researching the biography of the personalities, the biographical study considered here implies still on discussing an autobiographical method directed toward the comprehensive study of the subjectivity. In order to do so, beyond an objective sociological contextualization, it is also necessary to understand the contribution of the psychoanalysis to the study of two other dimensions:

A) Subjectivity, standing out the idea that the traumatic events of a biography are suppressed in the unconscious, generating neuroses and compulsions in the Personality;

B) Inter Subjectivity, mainly to the dialogical device of analytical transference and counter-transference, that is, to the process of analogical projection of cultural similarities and differences between the Researcher and the Biographed.

That is: the analytical discourse about the Other is also a personal understanding of one Self. Thus the second step of the biographical research proposed here is to observe the relations between the subjectivity of the Researcher with the subjectivity of the Biographed. Among the several dialogical techniques and interviews schemes to think the analytical situation of transference and counter-transference, there is a simple diagram of organization of these relations.

Intersection: What motivates the research? For example, we are journalists and we are interested in searching the journalistic activity of John Doe because we identify with it. Here it is set the limits of the thematic universe of the research, the cultural intersection between the Researcher and the Biographed.

Contradiction: Inside of the thematic universe common to the Researcher and the Biographed there are ‘internal' differences and similarities, There is a question to be answered, a conflict to be mediated. In the example of the biography of the journalist John Doe it is necessary to make explicit which are his specific characteristics and which are the difficulties and the advantages resultant of this profile.

Contrast: But john doe had a life whose identity exceeds our initial projection: He was not only a novelist, dramaturge, a professor on the professional point of view, but also a friend, father, pupil, brother, husband, son, lover, citizen and many others facets. Here it is specified what it is going to be in the ‘background’ if related to a figure on a portrait.

Ambientation: Following the metaphor, in this point it is detailed the place that the picture occupies in our environment. Or what it is learned with the history of John Doe? What is the importance of this biography in our life (in the life of the researcher and in the life of its reader)?
In the case of autobiographic studies, where the researcher and the biographed are the same person, one can use the same scheme, but an interlocutor is necessary. This interlocutor must have some experience in analytical listening and somehow intervene or direct the autobiographical process, limiting himself to elaborate questions that facilitate the emergency of relations of identity (“you want to speak on behalf of your generation?” or “what does the Brazilian feel when gets to know abroad?”).

The well known tendency of wanting to show only the positive aspects of life, sweeping underneath the carpet of unconscious the hard times and the mistakes committed, either due to adulation of the biographer either by vanity of the biographed, must be exorcised by both from the beginning of the process and it is, considered that there is no technique or methodological procedure that guarantees ethics, a question of conscience.

Besides this inter subjective contextualization of the framing that the researcher makes out of his object, the psychological dimension of the subjectivity implies still in the biographical study of the personality development. To elaborate maps and procedures for tabbing this information, we here propose a different and heterodox theoretical approach: the biographical psychology.

BIOGRAPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY

The biographical psychology, structured in the system of progression based on seven years cycles in the development of the human being, is one of the branches of the Anthroposophy, elaborated by the German thinker Rudolf Steiner. His method was meticulously applied as much in the study of biographies as in pedagogical and therapeutical practices and has ample empirical evidence. For example, based on these principles of biographical development it was organized the Waldorf pedagogy (that has schools worldwide); a methodology of age strategies for human resources adopted by many companies and a medical approach that takes into account the persons’ period in life.

According to the Chinese, in a life “There are 20 years to grow/learn, 20 years to fight and 20 years to achieve wisdom”. The biographical psychology subscribes this affirmation and still it subdivides in seven year cycles each one of these three great phases. In the first phase, from birth to the age 21, one may observe the formation of the body and the personality in three stages: up to the age of 7, from 8 to the 14 and then maturity. Each one of these seven-year stages corresponds to one specific degree of development of the body and the personality and the passage to another level implies in crisis and adaptation. In the end of the age seven, the child lives a socialization crisis; when fourteen, the crisis of sexuality; and at twenty the crisis of identity. The same way, biographical psychology subdivides the adult phase (21-42) and mature phase (42-63) in three stages of 7 years each, with transition crisis.

FORMATION 0 -21
0-7 - Crisis of Socialization
8-14 - Crisis of Sexuality
15-21 - Crisis of Identity

FULLNESS 22 -42
21-28- The soul of the sensation
29-35 - The soul of the intellect
36-42- The soul of the conscience

BIOLOGICAL DECLINE 43 -63
33-49 - Second crisis of sexuality
50-56 - Second crisis of Identity
57-63 - Second crisis of Socialization

While in first the three seven-year cycles of life the individual lives a predominance of the biological factors over the subjective ones, he will also have an equal period where it has a balance and a period of biological decay and spiritual opportunity from the age 42. In this last period, there is a predominance of the subjective factors over the biological ones and the crises (or cognitive changes) are symmetrical to the seven-year cycles from the youth. From the 43 to 49, we return to 14-21; from 50 to 56 we return to 7-14; and, finally, from 57 to 63, the period from zero to the age seven.

Let´s see now each one of the seven year cycles and the corresponding questions to each stage, developed by the Dr. Gudrun Burkhard, in the book “Tomar a vida nas próprias mãos/ Taking life with one owns hands”(2000), the great coder of the biographical theory.

From zero to the seven years, in 1º cycle, it is the phase of the biological structuring of the person. The relation with the parents and the family is fundamental in this phase. Therefore it is important to determine how was the house, the home, the environment and the people from the place where you lived at this time.

“How was your relation with father, mother, brothers, grandmothers, aunts? Had they lived all in the same house that you? Defined the human environment in general, also establish the routines of your life in these period. Which were your favorite toys? Which were your preferred activities” (BURKHARD, 2000, 73-74).

Generally the first memory that one has is close to the advent of the first words. The memories previous to speak are more difficult to access. By the way, the discursive capacity plays a basic role in the organization of the memory, and the image that one makes of itself (before its mother) before the appearance of the speech remains unconscious for the rest of your life, as a pattern of attachment in the relationships. In the Anthroposophy, this is the period of construction of the vital body or double ethereal.

From 7 to 14, in 2º cycle, the focus of the development is dislocated from family to school, from parents to friends. It is necessary to ask with what age one entered school, how was literacy, which were the preferred teachers and subjects.

“What were the concepts, norms and customs that you received at that time? How was your religious education? And what were your artistic activities?” (BURKHARD, 2000, 74).
It is also important to remember how school vacations were. If there was the chance to practice sport, to make excursions, to have contact with nature. The friends start to play a basic role, especially of the opposite sex, although in this phase the children apparently show disinterest and even aversion for the behaviors of the other sex. And when puberty arrived, how have you dealt with the corporal changes? How was the first kiss? And the first sexual experience, how you discovered sexuality. In 3º Cycle, from 14 to 21, we enter adolescence, period where we generally rebel against family and other institutions that regulate our life. Also it is important to define if you needed to work or could invest in your professional formation. By the way, how did it happen your professional choice?

“Which were your ideals? What people had influenced positively or negatively at the time? How was your relationship with your parents? How was your relationship with the opposite sex?” (BURKHARD, 2000, 74-75).

From 21 to 28, in the 4º cycle, starts the second part of our lives. It is no longer a matter of growing, of learning; it is now, a matter of fighting, of conquering space. In this period, at the same time where it has a continuity of the conditions of the previous cycle there is also a consideration about the excesses, as well as a maturation and a consolidation of the personality formed during adolescence, of the mind developed in the school period and the ego constructed at home.

Many insist (in vain) on the adolescence! The great majority of young workers question themselves if they chose the right profession, if they had the chance to know many work situations. And regarding personal life, there are also many doubts and insecurity. Many times, this is a period of new beginnings, not only in the professional life, but also in the personal and familiar life.

“How do I choose my partners? Is there a common pattern in the people who I choose to relate? What roles have I assumed? Which ones had been heavier? And more: Did I obtain a good relation with the world, with the work organization, with the family and myself? Did I manage to put my ideals into practice? Which talents and aptitudes did I left behind? Which are my real technical abilities” (BURKHARD, 2000, 100).

From 28 to 35, in 5º Cycle, `crisis of talents' potentialize even more the doubts about being a winner or a loser (an always precocious evaluation, clearly) in relation to the objectives traced during adolescence. One expects that the person has found the mission of its life. In this point, the person questions if have found and accepted life’s basic question, it’s strategical intention. “Can I have my individuality well developed? Can it be expressed? Did I feel oppressed or oppressed somebody? Had I find my place of performance? Had I feel valued? What made me feel my valuation?” (BURKHARD, 2000, 111).”

The 6º Cycle, from 35 to 42, is the apex of the biography. A moment of balance between the biological and psychological aspect, as well as greater physical and mental capacity. In this context, the person makes a balance of its performance and of its image with more property. “How do others see me? How do I see me exactly? What illusions about myself did I have to dismantle” (BURKHARD, 2000, 120).

With 7º cycle, from 42 to 48, starts the biological decline and the third phase of life. Now, the person must prepare herself for aging healthily and developing its subjectivity and its wisdom. The values of comparison change, and also the perspective and objectives of life. But not always this passage is conscientious and voluntary. The Andropause (and the menopause, for women) and the so called middle-age crisis, the age of the wolf, is resultant of an imaginary return to adolescence, the 3º cycle is symmetrical to the 7º - both deal with sexuality and its relation with the reproductive system.

“What have I left behind in aptitudes, potentials and talents that I now want to rescue? In my work, am I worried about successors? Have I had the chance to donate my mature fruits? To who? How is my marriage? My relationship? The relation with my children? Have I developed activities where I used conceptual abilities” (BURKHARD, 2000, 133).

The 8º cycle, from 48 to 56, in turn, consists on a return to the learning period. It is symmetrical to the 2º cycle and represents a chance to review values and concepts that guide life. “Did I find a new rhythm of life? How it is my annual, monthly, weekly and daily rhythm? Which are the dry twigs of my tree, which have to be cut so that new sprouts can appear? (BURKHARD, 2000, 143).

From 56 to 63, the 9º cycle, there is a period of a return to infancy, to the first cycle and to the mechanisms of shaping the ego. The family comes back to be the central focus of development and reflection. The health of the body and imminent death also start to be part of the person's day to day during this period. “How do I see my biography in its totality? What did I manage to carry through? Are there still tasks that I would like to complete, or others to accomplish? How do I deal with my physical uneasiness or illnesses? How do I take care of body, of the memory, of my sensitive organs? Are there relationships that had not been absorbed, where there are open questions? How is it the matter of my properties? How is it the matter of retirement? Do I have moments of grace, feelings of gratitude and joy? I am capable to pardon? (BURKHARD, 2000, 151).

We cannot detail here this whole system of biographical development, which has many practical applications and outspreads in Anthroposophy. For us, it is important as part of our strategy of constructing parameters for the elaboration of Biographical Maps of the Subjectivity, where one can visualize the crisis and the development of the biographed every seven years.

OBJECTIVITY - Map of the Social Context
SUBJECTIVITY - Seven-years Cycle Biographical maps
INTERSUBJECTIVITY - Map of Dialogical Relations
TRANSUBJECTIVITY - Interview-performance

Then, let us recapitulate: to avoid the (auto) biographical study of subjectivity to fall into subjectivism, we prescribe initially a map of the social context of the biography, subdivided in scenes (historical, familiar, geographic, educational, economic, etc) with its specific conditioning factors. This first proposal corresponds to an objective social framing, the first level of hermeneutic interpretation.

After that, to investigate the psychological dimension of the biographed subjectivity we consider the adoption of the models that derive from typologic and biographical psychologies, specially the chronological maps of seven-year cycles. The objective of this procedure is to establish common, universal biological parameters for all the biographies, thus leaving salient the subjective differences in the development of the personality. This procedure corresponds to second level of hermeneutic interpretation, the symbolic level.

And to study the inter-subjectivity, the third level of hermeneutic interpretation, we adopt the map of the dialogic relations of identity, and made some considerations on the role of interlocutor in the organization of biographies. Actually we inverted the order of 2nd and 3rd procedure in order to facilitate the presentation of the ideas, but, in the hermeneutics, `the order of the factors does not modify the result', once its procedures serve as much to understand as to explain and can be applied simultaneously.

And the 4th step, archetypical and hyper-textual, to which procedure corresponds in this methodology of study of the biographical subjectivity? The Interview-performance and its script organized from the previous maps. For Cremilda Medina (1986) to interview is more art than technique. The interview would be a dialogic text, literary genre of four-hand writing, because when interviewer and interviewed enters in creative synergy, they come to formularizations that they would be incapable to elaborate alone.

The journalistic interview specifically, opposing to the interviews made by sociologists and/or psychologists, would be a text written by three elements, including, besides the interviewer and of the interviewed, the category of 'public', the invisible presence of a great anonymous audience, distant and not territorialized.

This third element has many outspreads: inversely to the comprehensive character of the philosophical dialogic of Plato or the clinical dialogic of Freud, the discourse of the interview becomes performatic and spectacular; the appearance of the 'off' (or what is said away from the presence of the public) and even of a pre-interview (briefing) in which it is combined the limits of the interview.

Cremilda says that the journalistic interview oscillates between the comprehensive and the spectacular pole according to a greater or minor presence of the public inside the interview. I argue; however, that she has not considered the existence of the audience that stimulates and, in a certain way, guide the interlocutors of an interview-performance. I depend on the kind of public, different aspects or ways of exposing the same fact appear in the dialog between researcher and biographed, leading to different results. In our case one should initially make everything possible to set aside the idea of public in the biographical interviews. Even if the work aims publication or another form of exposition of the researched material, it is interesting, on a first moment, to have a research period in which divulgation does not exert any pressure on the production of data.

For such, we use the maps (of the social context of the biography; of the dialogic relations of identity; and the seven-year cycle biography) as script for the preliminary interview, without a recorder or video camera.

And, on a second moment, armed with these data, one can also make recorded interviews (more performatic and less comprehensive) in which the presence of the public is used to discover some dramatic moment or a fact less evident in the preliminary interviews.

In this model, the events are organized from the present in area (houses, works & studies and/or friends & loves), stages (periods) and events. Thus, having raised all biographical information in the preliminary interview, the researcher will be able to develop at least three performatic retrospective interviews referring to the residences, the occupations and the personal relations of the biographed. In the case of video recording, one can edit these three performatic interviews (the houses, the professional life, and the personal and academic relationships) in only one sequence. The same can be done with audio text.

INCONCLUSION

And then, how to interpret life? It is obvious that each life unique, actually, life is a process of individual singularization and collective multiplicity. We traced here parameters and procedures constructed through self-observation and applied in many biographies, directly, with interviews, as well as indirectly, through the study of prominent historical personalities. However, it does not fit here to present these preliminary results, but only to launch the seeds for the future organization of many auto-biographical researches according to these parameters.

[1] For a critical approach of the different applications of biographies in the social sciences v. FERRAROTTI In: NÓVOA & FINGER; 1988. P. 17-34.


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

BUENO, Delmira Oliveira O método autobiográfico e os estudos com histórias de vida de professores: a questão da subjetividade. Educação e Pesquisa, São Paulo, v.28, n.1, p. 11-30, 2002.
BURKHARD, Gudrun. Tomar a vida nas próprias mãos - Como trabalhar a própria biografia o conhecimento das leis gerais do desenvolvimento humano. São Paulo: Editora Antroposófica, 2000.
_________ Bases Antroposóficas da Metodologia Biográfica – a biografia diurna. São Paulo: Editora Antroposófica, 2002.
GOMES, Marcelo Bolshaw. O Hermeneuta - Uma introdução ao estudo de Si. Dissertação de mestrado em Ciências Sociais. Natal: UFRN, 1997.
____________ Um Mapa, Uma Bússola – Hipertexto, Complexidade e Eneagrama. Rio de Janeiro, Editora Mileto, 2001.
LANZ, Rudolf. A Pedagogia Waldorf: Caminho para um ensino mais humano. São Paulo: Editora Antroposófica, 1990.
LIEVEGOED, Bernard. Fases da Vida – crise e desenvolvimento da individualidade. São Paulo: Editora Antroposófica, 1994.
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______________ Teoria da Interpretação. Lisboa: Edições 70, 1999.
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live the dream, dream the life

A Dream of a Thousand Cats

“Is the wise man who dreams to be a butterfly or is it the butterfly that dreams to be a wise man who dreams to dream about being a butterfly?"[1] The world of dreams has always been presented to man as a reality parallel to the universe observed through the senses. And, very early, somebody deduced that the universe would have to be a dream of God. E the Dream acquired proper life, for the joy of the great Dreamer, then starting to be shaped by minor dreamers, the men of spirit or creative creatures.

Don Miguel Ruiz (2005) says that we dream all the time (we are exactly dreaming: I am writing and you are reading this text). When we are awake, our dream has a percipient framing, reality, but our thoughts and feelings, the whole system of beliefs of our society, are part of the oneiric activity, in a collective form.

Thus, for Ruiz, there is a collective dream – “dream of hell” or “dream of the planet'” - and our personal dreams. In our family, school and society upbringing, our personal dreams “are domesticated through fear”; therefore we become slave of other people's expectations and of our own demands. Fear not only of being punished or killed, but mainly of being rejected, of not being loved. There is a strange “love-me-love-me-not” in the social self-domestication dream produced by human society.

Two important conclusions can be extracted from the teachings of Miguel Ruiz: it is necessary to retake our capacity of dreaming, freeing our personal dream away from the collective dream of fear of exclusion; and it is also necessary, together with other dreamers, to understand and transform this social dream of planetary destruction, so that the future generations can live in harmony with Earth.

The Personal Dream

In Babylon, in China, in the Indian Vedas, in the aboriginal traditions of Americas, Africa and the Oceania, and in every religions that one have notice about, the dreams play a fundamental role. The dreams are the base of every human system of belief. Josef Campbell said that the “myths are shared dreams, dreams are private myths”. However, actually, the people possess myths and the dreams possess people. The dreams are personal.

Most of the time, the personal dreams are interpreted as ciphered messages of gods, of the ancestors or malignant beings. E the Talmud says that “a dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not opened”. The Greeks (Hippocrates and Aristotle) gave a special importance to the diagnosis of illnesses through the dream. Artemidoro de Daldis, in century II A.D., distinguished the common dream, referred in the biographical past; from the premonitory dream of ‘virtuous souls', referred in the future.

In modern times, for scientific objectivety, the dream, the most subjective of the human activities, remained meaningless and senseless until Sigmund Freud proclaimed that “the dream is the (symbolic) realization of a (censured) desire”. Or, more necessarily: the dream to Freud is a conglomerate of psychic formations shaped by the former biographical history of the individual, with multiple meanings, which function is to protect against suffering and to satisfy the desires restrained by the censoring.

In the Interpretation of the Dreams (1990), Freud launched the basis of modern hermeneutic science when distinguishing, in the deciphering of the oneiric phenomena, the manifest content, latent or occult. For him, every dream would be `the symbolic accomplishment of an inhibited desire', but not always the expression of this desire is clear and unequivocal, in contrast, there would be psychological mechanisms responsible for the symbolic disguise of the suppressed impulses. Freud would call these mechanisms: condensation, displacement, process of secondary elaboration, symbolism and dramatization.

Condensation is understood as the process according to which a manifest content present more than one latent content on a simplified form. On its turn, displacement is defined as the process in which the affective baggage is detached from its normal object to fix itself in an accessory object. Lacan, when taking the structuralized unconscious as a language and the dream as a discourse to be deciphered, recognized Freud’s mechanisms of condensation and displacement in terms of ‘metonymy’ and ‘metaphor’, imported from the structuralist linguistics. The secondary elaboration is disclosed as the process by which, as the vigil approaches, the oneiric production is reorganized by a rational logic. Thus, we remember the dreams backwards, erasing its details and paradoxes. The dramatization consists in the process through which the conceptual contents are substituted by visual images. The symbolization is distinguished from the dramatization for two characteristics. First, while dramatization always comes from the abstract towards the concrete, the symbol goes from concrete to concrete, from an image to other without concepts. Second, the relation of the meaning with the signal is strictly personal in the dramatization; whereas in the symbol, it is universal. Thus, in a certain way, dramatization and symbolism would be analogous collective mechanisms to the individual processes of condensation and displacement. For Freud, the process of symbolization would yet be explained through the censorship and through the four movements of defense of the ego before the crudity of its instincts and objectionable desires: identification, projection, introjection and sublimation.

It is necessary to point out that the notion of sublimation in the interpretation of dreams will be the central point of the divergences between Freud and Jung, once that the disciple disagreed that the symbolic sphere was only a result of the determinist and compulsory character of the unconscient biographically suppressed. Jung saw in the dreams of his clients mythological elements organized in a prospective way (and, in many times, premonitory) thus coming to the conclusion that the unconscious is not only a mere instance of repetition of the individual past, but still it holds its psychic transcendence and more complex phenomena, of collective and transpersonal character.

For Jung, the oneiric images are offered as a narrative where the protagonist is the own narrator: the dreamer. On the personal point of view, there is a compensatory psychic function between the relations of the axis Ego-Self and Collective Conscience- Individual Unconsciousness. The dream is always presented as mediation and compensation between these four extremities. But there is also a transcendent function: For one that pays attention to his own dreams get on a process of development (the individuation) in which his conscience is reconnected to the ethical and aesthetic values of the archetypical matrix.

Thus, the dream, more than an involuntary expression of a passed problem, it is considered a response elaborated by the unconscious, a prospective reorganization, a solution directed toward the future. (HALL, 1985)

Still, in the scope of the psychoanalysis, other approaches had been recently developed as the one of Tales Ab'Saber (2006). In it, the ‘work of dream’ becomes a method of development ‘in pair’, as much as in the analytical transference inspired in Bion (the analyst dreams the dream of the analyzed, and him, on his turn, takes it as a object of dreaming) as in the activity of mediation subject-object (in the equalization between dreaming and playing, between the oneiric and the ludic- as observed by Winnicott).

But it was in the field of the neurosciences that the study of the personal dreams has prospered the most. In 1952, Leitman and Aserinsky (2003) established, through electroencephalogram, the physiological cycle of sleep, composed by at least three stages with different neurophysiologic properties: hipnagogic stage (the beginning of the sleep where the thoughts consist of fragmented images and small scenes), the stage of slow waves (in which the cerebral waves of the neo-cortex present low frequencies and great amplitude) and the stage of REM (rapid eye movement).

During the phase of REM sleep or deep sleep, the brain presents a functioning similar to the state of vigil in moments of higher activity (confrontation with danger, fight for survival, imminent sexual contact) - what leaded the scientists to conclude that the dreams happened exclusively in this period.

During two decades, REM sleep was a physiological synonymous of the dream and the idea of Freud, that the dreams are produced by mental processes, were compatible with the scientific knowledge of the cerebral functioning. This up to 1977, when Hobson and Mc Carley (1988) had discovered the model of activation-synthesis and reciprocity interaction. To them, the brain binds meaningless impulses and feelings to sensorial impressions and memories, producing a coherent narrative out of random. Simple oscillatory movements for which the conscience is turned on and off in intervals of 90 minutes through the interaction of reciprocal chemical substances, that nothing have to do with mental processes. That is, Hobson and Mc Carley proved that REM sleep is not the physiological equivalent for the dream. On the other hand, the scientists had reduced the oneiric activity to a mere subjective epiphenomenon of the sleep, with no importance, a meaningless frivolity of our mind.

In the 90’s, Mark Solms (1997), through his studies with dopamine, rehabilitated REM sleep as dream and made Freud compatible with the neuroscience again. After that, Jonathan Winson (1985), studying the role of the rhythm ‘Teta’ of cerebral waves, endorsed the idea that the dreams have subjective meaning, even being able to reflect a mechanism of processing memories inherited from inferior species. And, currently, there is great controversy between the neuroscientists: a part considers the dream a resultant of merely physiological processes, while others believe that it is also caused by mental processes, following Freud´s logic.

Studying the propagation, creation and simulation of memories and making an ample bibliographical revision and a current synthesis of the neuro-scientific research about dreams and sleep, Sidarta Ribeiro and Miguel Nicolelis (2004) defend not only the rehabilitation of Freud’s ideas, but also Jung’s ideas. The dream has an important role in the consolidation of many kinds of memory, playing a basic role in the learning process. Observing how the gene zif 268, associated to learning, is selectively activated during REM sleep, the scientists had come to the conclusion that REM sleep is creative. Although the reinforcement and the reorganization of memories are cognitive functions of dreaming, there is still a simulation of possible futures. The dreams are hyper-associative sequences of fragmented memories, which simulate past events and future expectations in a way to generate solutions for the cognitive challenges faced by the dreamer.

This approach also will be developed by Atlan, that sees the dream as a code for information storage in our memory, not only of the biographical suppressions, but, overall, of possibilities for self-organization process. The dream, then, would be also a form to select alternatives and to orient decisions (1992, P. 126) Dreaming to organize memories and to learn, or dreaming to forget? For Crick (1995) REM sleep is a process of contrary learning or unlearning, a self-cleaning program that discards the unnecessary information.

In the researches of Ribeiro and Nicolelis, however, it makes no difference if the cup is half full or half empty: the REM sleep makes us forget as much as it organizes our memories, being capable to simulate future situations based on the processing of information from the past. Whe are then back to the same the point where Artemidoro, Freud & Jung had arrived: there are dreams referred in the past (the slow wave sleep) and there are dreams referred in the simulation of future (REM sleep). However, the researches of Ribeiro and Nicolelis about the dream had opened a sufficiently ample horizon of studies and currently there are many researches in progress: the filo-genetic development of the REM dream in relation to the evolution of the species (RIBEIRO, 2004); the ontogenetic development of REM dream in relation to the human infantile growth and the plasticity of the brain (FRANK, 2004); the study of nightmares and after-traumatic disturbance (PERES; MERCHANT; NASELLO, 2005); among others.[2]

The Collective Dream

For Ivan Bystrina (1995), there are three interrelated levels of message codification: the primary or hypo-linguistic code, in which the vital processes are operations of informational exchange that operate through simple signals and are organized from the experience; the secondary or linguistic code, an institutional system of collective cognition; and the tertiary or hyper-linguistic code or second reality, constructed to perpetuate messages to the future generations. And the second reality formed by our deep dreams and desires have its origin in four possible sources: the dream, the mental illnesses, the mystic ecstasy and the games.

In this optic, the second reality is the symbolic universe. If we were to write a history of this collective dreaming, the first step would be the dream of the Cave of Plato: "Chained with their backs turned against the light in an underground jail, the prisoners can only see, out of the men, animals and figures that pass in the exterior, their projected shades in the back of the Cave. When one of the prisoners manages to get free and return to the exterior world, he is blinded by the Sun light and only after a while manages to adapt himself to the new reality. He notices, then, that the world in which he lived was unreal and unconscious, made out of shades and reflexes of things. However, the prisoner would risk his life if, returning to the interior of the cave, he tried to reveal to his old fellows the unreality of the world where they were. Probably, they would kill him". And the dream of the Cave divided the world into two realities: one sensible and illusory and other; distant, truthful and intelligible.

Saint Augustin, another master in the art of dreaming, in his Confessions, made of the interior of the cave the memory of the things of men, and the exterior world as the memory of the things of God. Jesus substituted Socrates as the redeemer and the unifying of the two worlds. And more: for the creator of the doctrine of the original sin, there is a City of God parallel to the City of Men (as Plato´s sensible and intelligible realities); Augustin placed the platonic utopia of a perfect society as a historical goal for mankind, idea that was adopted by many thinkers after him: After being banish from the garden of Eden, man dissociated the universe, Christ reopened the passage between the worlds and the return to the New Jerusalem will be the reunification of the cities. And the dream of the Holy City in the End of Times gave a meaning to history and a destination to humanity. We live in a universe divided between what we feel and what we think, but we are walking towards the eschatological unification.

Several other minor dreams can be unfold from this magisterial dream: the dream of the conspiracy in a world governed by evil, the dream of the return of the Messiah and Rousseau with the dream of democracy.

But, a certain day, in the beginning of the17th Century, the French philosopher René Descartes dreamed that the Universe was a gigantic clock and that God was a watchmaker, refusing the scholastic explanations that were the human virtues that determined the events and that the divine forces acted directly over human destiny. And the dream of the universe-machine still today frames our dream and the way we understand reality. Contemporary authors criticize the Cartesian thought on its rationalist aspect (the method of the systematic doubt, the dissociation of time and space in the Cartesian axles, the idea of geometric plan dissociated from real space), but are unaware that the proposition enunciated by Descartes is an act of power intended in dreaming. Fritjoff Capra, for example, would like to break with the mechanist paradigm in which the world is a machine to define the universe as a complex biological system, but still live and think under a machine-universe.

During modernity (this objective and ‘thinged’ image that we make of ourselves), we were prisoners of our own illusion, forced to survive in a violent and meaningless world, throwed in a cold and heartless universe, we are no more, to the eyes of objective science, than small balls of meat around a ball of rock that is around a great ball of fire. But, I am not a meat ball, the Earth is not a rock ball and the Sun is not a fire ball. On the other hand, we cannot retrocede either, considering the stars to be gods and reallocating the observer in the center of the universe, as it was done before the objective science and the advent of the modern world.

It is necessary to realize that universe is vibrational, constituted of energy and relations between different states of being. There is not a single objective universe, but many virtual universes (microcosmic, astrophysical, sub-atomic, etc). And, although contemporary science (the quantum mechanics, for example) has no objects, we still live in a world of things and not in the world of the relations between energies. That is: the universe is no longer a clock but a computer, and God, is its programmer! By the way, the movie Matrix combines the dreams of the cave, of the utopia and of the mechanical universe, fantasizing to dream a way out of our world, but it keeps it in the plan of imagination. True dreaming implies creating a way never before imaginable; opening new perspectives, and not simply weaving fantasies with myths crystallized by the traditions.

But, there is an individual exit of this ‘thinged’ and mechanical universe where we are dived in dreaming itself. As it is now a common place to say: “a dream that one dreams alone is only a dream; but a dream that is dreamt collectively becomes reality”. By the way, there are many stories and tales on this thematic, of which “A Dream of a Thousand Cats”, of Neil Gaiman (2006) stands out. In this story a cat dreams that its species had already dominated the planet, however, once that the felines no longer dream, it species passed to be dominated by the collective dream of humankind. In the day when a thousand cats dream, however, the feline dream will win again and men would come back to its original condition.

A dream similar to the one of Ribeiro and Nicolelis, defenders of the audacious hypothesis of the social generalization of the lucid dreams as an evolutive jump of great proportion for human conscience. If we develop the capacity to dream conscientiously, we would glimpse a universe of unimaginable possibilities for current humanity. Perhaps when a thousand human beings dream lucidly, then the human collective dream about the planet would also change, becoming conscientious of itself and its role in the universe.

[1]Thoughts attributed to Chuang Tzu. VI century b.C.
[2] More on lucid dreams at

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